Pursuing a PhD can be an arduous journey. Starting in 2024, a dedicated Doctoral Symposium has been held in conjunction with the ACM CCS conference to provide PhD students with timely feedback from the SIGSAC research community on their dissertation research.

The 2nd Doctoral Symposium will be held on Oct 16, on the last day of the CCS ’25 main conference. Invited PhD students will present their in-progress PhD dissertation work to the Doctoral Symposium Committee. During and after each presentation, the student, the committee, and the rest of the audience will engage in constructive discussions with the purpose of providing perspectives and suggestions to help the student refine and strengthen their dissertation work.

It is worth noting that a PhD dissertation has much more depth than a single peer-reviewed paper or simply a collection of results from several published papers. A PhD dissertation shall be based on a coherent postulate that is subject to rigorous scientific reasoning and experimentation, and consists of a substantial amount of inquiry -- theoretically, experimentally, or both -- that demonstrates the validity and utility of the said postulate. An ideal candidate who can benefit from the Doctoral Symposium is one who can articulate this vision, and explain to the committee 1) why it is worthwhile to conduct the research, 2) the rationale behind the approaches being contemplated/experimented, and 3) any existing data that demonstrates a feasible path forward. We expect students who can benefit most from the Doctoral Symposium are those who are in the middle of their PhD journey. This is also a period when a PhD student is eager to acquire a wide perspective of their work, but may not have had the exposure (e.g., conference presentations) necessary to receive feedback from the broader research community. To encourage participation in the Doctoral Symposium, ACM SIGSAC has provided generous financial support so each invited PhD student will receive up to $1,750 student travel grant to help defray the cost of attending the Doctoral Symposium.

We invite PhD students pursuing dissertation research in the area of computer security (i.e., on any topic that is of interest to ACM CCS) to submit a short dissertation research description to be evaluated by the Doctoral Symposium Committee. The description should adhere to the ACM double-column format with 3-page maximum (i.e., including title, abstract, content, and any references). Submissions are not blinded, and must contain the PhD student’s name, advisor’s name, affiliations, and contact information. Submissions that are not formatted as described above are subject to rejection without review. The content of the description shall capture the three essences described above. Selection will be based on the importance of the problem the dissertation research addresses, how well the description articulates the vision of the research, the quality of the preliminary work done, and how likely and to what extent the PhD student can benefit from the exchanges in the Symposium. The Doctoral Symposium's main purpose is to help PhD students advance their dissertation research, as opposed to showcasing almost-done dissertation work that has little chance of being influenced by the feedback from the Symposium. The three-page descriptions will be published post-conference as part of the CCS ’25 proceedings, and the authors decide which part of the descriptions are included in the proceedings.

Submission Site: https://acm-ccs-phdsym-2025.hotcrp.com
Email to Chairs: ccs25-phdsymposium-chairs@acm.org