IT SOC 2013 Summer School Proposal
Host: Center for Science of Information (Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana) http://soihub.org
PI and Director: Wojciech Spzankowski, Education Director: Brent T. Ladd (laddb@purdue.edu )
Proposed dates: June 4-7, 2013
Theme: Towards integrating time, space, structure, and semantics in the flow of information.
School Goals and Theme:
The main goals of the school will be to build capacity of knowledge and relationships between students
and senior scientists in a friendly and peer-based environment and by doing so establish the foundation
for long-term future scientific collaboration in the U.S. and abroad. The core topic will be information
theory, together with interdisciplinary topics that support and advance the goals of the IEEE Information
Theory Society. This proposal is for the first two days of the school focused on traditional information
theory topics and the final two days on interdisciplinary topics that bridge information theory with
biology, knowledge extraction, and quantum information theory. These interdisciplinary topics for the
school will introduce students to research in information theory that integrate time, space, structure, and
semantics in the flow of information. The integration of these aspects is crucial to advancement of many
scientific fields. Speakers will be selected from a broad base of scientists, both members and nonmembers of the Center.
The school will incorporate poster sessions and continue the one minute madness student presentations
that have been a staple of previous IT SOC summer school sessions, along with social events and awards.
Attendance of women and under-represented minorities will be emphasized through allocation of travel
support, as well as through the targeted recruitment efforts of the Center’s diversity director.
Host Facilities:
Purdue University is located in West Lafayette, Indiana approximately one hour north of state capitol
Indianapolis, and two hours south of Chicago. The campus is home to 40,000 undergraduate, graduate,
and post-doctoral students, with world class facilities. Historically, the Computer Science department at
Purdue was the first established unit in the U.S in 1962. The lodging and classroom facilities are topnotch
and ideally suited for hosting the IT SOC School where the student audience will number upwards of 200.
Center and Purdue staff and student support are available for planning, organizing, and carrying out the
duties of hosting the IT school. During early June, classes are not in session and rooms and facilities are
available to visiting groups.
Pre-planning Preparations:
The Center’s education director and associate director will attend and observe the 2012 IT SOC school to
be hosted at Cornell. This will provide first-hand experience, and also allow for interactions with the
organizers. The education director has experience in organizing and leading conference committees. In
addition, the Center will send several of our students to participate in the 2012 school. Center students
will be engaged in helping to coordinate sub-committees and assist visiting students during the 2013
school at Purdue.
Organizing Committee
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Wojciech Szpankowski, Professor, Computer Science Department, Purdue University (email:
spa@cs.purdue.edu)
Andrea Goldsmith, Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University (email:
andrea@ee.stanford.edu )
Sergio Verdu, Professor, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University (email:
verdu@princeton.edu )
Deepak Kumar, Professor, Computer Science Department, Bryn Mawr College (email:
dkumar@cs.brynmawr.edu)
Olgica Milenkovic, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Illinois (email: milenkov@uiuc.edu )
Todd P. Coleman, Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering, UC San Diego (email:
tpcoleman@uscd.edu )
Mark D. Ward, Assistant Professor, Statistics Department, Purdue University (email:
mdw@purdue.edu)
Brent Ladd, Director of Education, Center for Science of Information (email: laddb@purdue.edu)
Barbara Gibson, Director of Diversity, Center for Science of Information (email:
barbara@purdue.edu )
Advisors
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Gerhard Kramer (IT SOC) Gerhard.kramer@tum.de
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Aylin Yener (IT SOC) yener@ee.psu.edu
Web Master
 Mike Atwell (email: maatwell@purdue.edu) in coordination with Matthieu Bloch
Video Recording
 Mike Atwell (email: maatwell@purdue.edu)
Student Travel and Lodging Questions
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Kiya Smith (email: kiya@pudue.edu )
Catering/Food Coordinator
 Kiya Smith (email: kiya@pudue.edu )
 Darshana Umakanth, Student assistant
Student Assistants – graduate and undergrad students at Purdue
Speaker Coordinator
Lodging Arrangements
Poster Session
Pre-registration/feedback
On-site check-in
Projected Budget ($65K): based on recent IT SOC school budgets, if the ITSOC BOG approves $25K
support and NSF provides $15K as they have previously, our Center will be able to solicit some
additional support from our partners, internal budget, potential industrial affiliates, and Purdue University.
We understand most students attending pay for their university lodging at a subsidized rate, and some
travel scholarships are made available. If we raise enough funds, housing can be covered.
Contact Info:
Brent T. Ladd, Director of Education, Center for Science of Information
Purdue University
email: laddb@purdue.edu, ph: 765-496-1693
http://soihub.org