by Ingrid von Glehn, Oxford University SIAM Student Chapter 

If you’re a member of a SIAM student chapter, you might be thinking about hosting a student conference, perhaps for the first time. During a breakfast discussion at the 2012 SIAM Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, it emerged that many chapters (both U.S. and international) are involved in planning conferences. Why not work together, and share some ideas?

As a result, a group of student officers who had hosted conferences came together to share common experiences and agreed to generate a document to aid Student Chapters in hosting their own local conferences. The resulting document – or ‘White Papers’ – presents a suggested timeline for student conference preparation. The key message: most of the work happens behind the scenes many months in advance!

Items to think about include venues, keynote speakers, student talks, poster sessions, and marketing. To organize these and other aspects of a conference we have created a series of checklists that can help. For example, the first thing to consider is funding and sponsors. Do other chapters nearby have contacts? Can your mathematics department help out? Once that is secured, the type of venue can be determined. How many people might be attending, and will there be space for poster sessions? Will accommodation be needed if it’s a longer conference or if students are traveling from further away?

The use of websites and social media is key for publicizing the conference. Links in the document to other chapters’ conference websites show strategies for registration, marketing, and reaching out to more students. The aim of the document is to draw upon the ideas that have been successful during past conferences, combine them in a useful way, and share them so that some of the guesswork is taken out of the process.

The student chapter document gives timelines, detailed tips, and suggestions for chapters hosting their first conference

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