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We welcome you to the 2009 IST Graduate Symposium to be held at the Nittany Lion Inn at the Pennsylvania State University on February 19th – February 20th. Join us as we open our minds to new ideas and explore the future of information, technology and their interactions with people, organizations, government and society. Please use the navigation bar above to peruse this site.

MISSION

Now in its fourth year, the IST Graduate Symposium provides an opportunity for graduate students in IST and related fields to showcase and discuss their research interests in an open forum promoting discussion of their research practices and findings. Developed, organized and implemented by the IST graduate student community at Penn State, the symposium highlights the diverse range of disciplines and research in the field of the information sciences.

This year the symposium also affords graduate students an opportunity to meet with corporate and industry representatives, providing invaluable networking opportunities.

"The IST Graduate Symposium is a unique forum that enables graduate students of IST at Penn State to learn visions about the future from thought leaders in the industry, and to receive feedback and guidance about their research from people beyond their thesis committee. It also facilitates industry partners of the college to interact with graduate students and faculty regarding internship, career, and collaboration opportunities. Finally, the organization of the event is an excellent opportunity to showcase the passion and the dedication of our graduate students in contributing to vivid research community we have at IST@PennState."
- Dr. John Yen, Associate Dean


CONTINUING TO BUILD ACROSS DISCIPLINES

The IST Graduate Symposium has been a platform for IST graduate students and researchers across campus (and beyond) to explore interdisciplinary research in the information sciences. The event has featured a growing number of participants and speakers from IST, Penn State, and beyond. This year, all proceedings will be published and web-accessible (although authors will retain copyright). We will also bring IST industry partners to interact with students and faculty to facilitate discussions about research and internships, careers, and collaboration opportunities. Now is the time to get involved!

“The 2008 IST Graduate Symposium was a wonderful event. It was engaging, fun and a great opportunity for graduate students to come together as a community. Students and faculty networked and shared their research with one another as well as with industry professionals. Many students presented their work and heard from others in their field, allowing them to develop professionally. Many even secured internships with some of the participating companies. In addition, a number of research partnerships were formed between the students, faculty and professionals, both across the university and the field as a whole.

Following in the footsteps of previous years, for us the symposium was really about creating opportunities for graduate students and the community, to develop professionally through presentations and interactions with other professionals and to foster a community around a shared intellectual space.

Each year the symposium gets better and better and draws a larger and more diverse crowd. This year will be no exception!”

- Phillip Ayoub and Patricia Ruma Spence, 2008 IST Graduate Symposium Organizers and Ph.D. Candidates in IST


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The 2009 IST Symposium organizing committee would like to acknowledge the contributions of several key contributors to the success of this year’s event. We would like to thank Dr John Yen, Dr C. Lee Giles, Dr John Carroll and Dr Jim Jansen for their assistance in helping us to bring in world renowned speakers from both academia and industry. Our thanks also extend to the many faculty and staff members of IST who contributed so much of their time and expertise to the support of the panels and to the logistics of making the symposium a reality. Finally, we’d like to thank Dean Yen for taking the time out of his schedule to offer his guidance and expertise in planning and organizing the event.