SIEDS

Contributed papers are solicited that apply diverse methodologies, including:

• Data Modeling: including Big Data, Data Analytics, and Data Mining
• Simulation and Stochastic Modeling
• Decision Analysis and Optimization
• Human Factors and Cognitive Engineering
• Systems Integration & Design
• Risk Analysis, Technology Management, and Policy

Papers can describe work in a wide variety of application areas, including:

• Telecommunications and Information Technology
• Military Applications
• Healthcare
• Economic and Financial Systems
• Energy
• Environmental
• Robotics and Sensor Networks
• E-Business
• Transportation and Logistics
• Manufacturing
• Critical Infrastructure
• Education
• Ethics and Social Justice

Papers should emphasize the application of fundamental systems analysis and design concepts. Symposium papers presented will be submitted for archival in IEEE Xplore. Only those papers that are presented will be published. Submitted papers that are not presented will not be published.

Abstracts Due: February 14, 2025. Submissions open in January. See instructions below.
Abstract Decisions: March 14, 2025
Final Papers Due: April 11, 2025
Virtual Presentation Recordings Due: April 29, 2025
SIEDS Conference: May 2, 2025

Hybrid presentation options will be available for attendees at a distance from the conference site. Each 80-minute session will include 4 presentations.  Each presentation should be ~15minutes to allow 5 minutes for discussion.  Zoom links will be posted in the EDAS program shortly before the conference.

SIEDS 2025 Schedule:

Everything takes place at UVA’s Darden School of Business.

All events and food are included in the registration cost for in-person attendees.

SIEDS will take place at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Getting to Darden
We encourage local attendees to transit to Darden by the UTS Gold Bus Route or by foot.  We encourage out of town attendees staying in a Charlottesville hotel to use a ridesharing service like Lyft or Uber.  Parking is available, with instructions for parking to be sent to all attendees via email.

Local Accommodations
Stay the night in Charlottesville either before SIEDS or after the SIEDS Banquet!  A complete list of nearby hotels is here.  The closest (by far - walk to SIEDS!) is the Kimpton.  A local favorite that is more economical and right by Charlottesville’s epic Bodo’s Bagles is the English Inn.  If you want to stay in a UVA-themed hotel near the undergraduate bars, check out The Graduate.

Alan Thomas, VP, Products & Engineering
Installed Base Business
Framatome Inc.

Alan Thomas is the Vice President of Installed Base America, Products & Engineering.  In this role, Alan has a focus on the development and delivery of electrical and mechanical products as well as engineering products and services to support long-term operation of the commercial nuclear fleet. This includes developed and qualified electrical and mechanical hardware, and specialty engineering analyses and services in support of safety and quality systems and components for commercial nuclear power plants.  He has a passion for good stewardship and proactively impacting tomorrow.

Additionally, Alan serves as the executive sponsor for Innovation & Development with a focus on performance improvements and growth through development of new products and services, partnerships and acquisitions. He is also the sponsor for North America’s Installed Base Business’s Digital Transformation and Knowledge Management initiatives, which target achieving more efficient results using technology and expanding the skillsets of our people.

Prior to his current role, Alan held Executive roles for Innovation & Development and the Engineering business line. 

Alan is a graduate of Clemson University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.  He has also worked with the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), performing plant assessments and assisting its members.   

Register yourself at https://edas.info/registerPerson.php?c=33227
Register others at https://edas.info/registerPersonNew.php?c=33227

SIEDS will offer a mix of concurrent virtual and in-person sessions on May 2, 2025. Authors must declare their submission as in-person or virtual at the time of abstract submission.

• If you are attending the conference in Charlottesville, register as an ATTENDEE. The cost will be $200 per attendee. At least one author of the paper must register and attend the conference to present the work.
   
• If you will be attending the conference virtually, register as VIRTUAL. The cost will be $200 per paper. At least one author of the paper must register and attend the virtual sessions to present the work. For additional authors of the paper and all conference attendees, the links to the virtual sessions will be published in the program prior to the start of the conference.
   

Note: University of Virginia students on a capstone team in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering will be registered by their Department and should not register themselves.

In person: $200 per attendee.

Virtual: $200 per paper.

Each paper must have at least one registered author.

All fees are non-refundable.

SIEDS 2025 Committee

• Chair: Bryan Kuhr, Sweet Briar College
• Program Chair: Jon Su, Elon University
• Publication Chair, Makenzie Keepers, West Virginia University
• Judges Chair: Reid Bailey, University of Virginia
• Session Chairing Chair: Jad Atweh, University of Virginia
   

Steering Committee

• Chair: Reid Bailey, University of Virginia
• Finance Chair: Bill Scherer, University of Virginia
• Local Accommodations Chair: Greg Gerling, University of Virginia

Thank you for participating in SIEDS '25. We had an engaging and exciting conference due to your involvement. We are pleased to announce the best paper award winners in each of the tracks!

Track 1 - Policy & Decision Analysis: "High Utilizers of the Albemarle and Charlottesville Criminal Justice System" by Zakaria Afi, Sudarshan Atmavilas, Sarah Bedal, Olivia Bernard, Mohini Gupta, Caroline Lee, Loreto Alonzi, Michael Smith, K. Preston White, Jr., and Matthew S Vitale, (UVA)

Track 2 - Health & Environment I: "Cost-Effective Method for Detecting Water Leaks on a Large Rural College Campus" by Elizabeth G. Wells and Jonathan Bender (Sweet Briar)

Track 3 - Health & Environment II: "Direct User Control of Knee Exoskeletons" by Zachary Bucknor-Smartt, Javid Mustafa, Landry Graves, Willem Bannick, Mamta Korwani, Gray C. Thomas (Texas A&M)

Track 4 - Optimization, Data, Systems Design I: "COFFEE: a High-Performance Approach to Convex Optimization for Thermodynamic Equilibrium Computations" by Fu-Yao Yu, Sahil Shah, Yash Mittal, Paul Bessler, Aamir Mohsin, Jeffrey Geng, Arnav Vats and David Soloveichik (The University of Texas at Austin, USA)

Track 5 - Optimization, Data, Systems Design II: "Experimental Validation of Capacitive Touch Sensors: Recommendations for Human Machine Interface Design" by Molly R Booth, Ashley Maggiora, Samantha Champion, Ana Patiño Rojas and Bryan Kuhr (Sweet Briar College, USA)

Previous winners are:

2024:

Track 1 - Decision Analysis & Policy: “Evolutionary-based Coordination of Multi-Robot Systems with Dynamic Constraints” by Vihar Shah, Matthew Heeter, Jose Vallarino, Patrick Sherman, Lauren Bramblett and Nicola Bezzo (University of Virginia)

Track 2 - Health & Environment I: “Predicting Winter California Precipitation with Convolutional Neural Networks” by Anthony Chiado, Kristian Olsson, Luke Rohlwing, Michael Vaden, Antonios Mamalakis (University of Virginia)

Track 3 - Health & Environment II: “Operating Room Throughput Efficiency Improvement at LewisGale Medical Center, Salem VA” by Robert N Bromwell, Natalie Cherbaka, Braxton T Atkins, Claire Braun and Natalie Kennedy (Virginia Tech, USA)

Track 4 - Optimization, Data, Systems Design I: “ScanMatch Versus MultiMatch: A Comparison of the Sensitivity of Scanpath Similarity Metrics to Changes in Workload” by Jad A. Atweh and Sara L. Riggs (University of Virginia)

Track 5 - Optimization, Data, Systems Design II: “Exploration of Factors Associated with Successful Participation in Home Electronic Incarceration at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail” by Stella Banino, George Boulos, Chris Craft, Laura Phillips, Sally Sydnor, Loreto Peter Alonzi III, Michael Smith, K. Preston White, Matthew Vitale (University of Virginia)

2023:

Track 1 - Decision Analysis: "Locating Emergency Response in the Metrorail System: A Decision Support Tool" by Elizabeth Ottinger, Alejandro Medina Mora, Kaveena Patel, Islay Van Dusen, Erica Gralla (George Washington University)

Track 2 - Health: "Optimizing Outpatient Cancer Infusion Center Throughput Using a Systems-Based Approach" by Devon M. Zavacky, Anna M. Bustamante, Hayden C. Ratliff, Rupa S. Valdez (University of Virginia)

Track 3 - Data and Optimization: "AI Assisted Trail Map Generation Based on Public GPS Data" by Jared Macshane, Ali Ahmadinia (California State University San Marcos)

Track 4 - Policy: "A Robust Control Chart for Monitoring Reliability Systems" by Parisa Jahani Alamdari (K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Iran), Mohammad Mahdi Ahmadi (University of Arizona)

Track 5 - Environment: "Investigating the Impact of Temporal Labeling of Emergency Department Visits for COVID-19: Comparing Healthcare Disparities Analyses Using Comprehensive, Single-Site Data with National COVID Cohort Co" by Madeleine Jones, Aubrey Winger, Christian Wernz, Jonathan Michel, Sihang Jiang, Andrea Zhou, Ebony Jade Hilton, Mikhail Zemmel, Saurav Sengupta, Kierah Barnes, Johanna Loomba, Donald Brown (University of Virginia)

Track 6 - Systems Design: "A General Framework for Human-Drone Interaction Under Limited On-Board Sensing" by Sammy Nayhouse, Samir Chadha, Chase Moore, Patrick Hourican, Nicola Bezzo (University of Virginia)

Once again, congratulations to the authors and thank you to the session moderators and judges for their hard work! We hope to see everyone next year.

-SIEDS Committee

All abstract, paper, and presentation submissions will be handled using EDAS. 

Submit an Abstract here.

Step-by-step Guide for Submitting an Abstract

The abstract should address the following four topics. 

Motivation - Why:  Provide context for the work and reasons it is important. 

Focus of this Work - What:  Write a short statement of the specific focus of the work presented.   

Methodology - How:  Describe the methodology used to approach the problem of interest. If the focus of your work is on designing a system, this section frequently focuses on your design (“how” the focus of the work is addressed). 

Results:  Identify results.  If results are forthcoming, state what you expect to have as results by the time the final paper is due.  If the focus of your work is on designing a system, then Results frequently focuses on validation/testing results.   

 Useful abstract preparation information:

• You will submit your abstract in a textbox; don’t focus on the formatting.  Figures, pictures, tables, or equations cannot be included.
• The headers for each of the four sections are not needed – that is just to help you structure your abstract.
• Your abstract should be 100-500 words.

All abstract, paper, and presentation submissions will be handled using EDAS.

Link to submit papers:  Sign into EDAS and register for the conference.  You will then see an icon to upload your final manuscript.  Only one author for each paper is required to upload the final manuscript. Papers should be uploaded by April 12th in PDF format. The maximum number of pages is six (6).

Paper Template:   All papers must conform to the two-column IEEE Robotics and Automation Society format. A template is available in Word and Latex from IEEE. We have developed a Google Docs and Overleaf template as well. Please duplicate these documents/projects and use as your own copy.

If you are having difficulty submitting your paper. (1) Make sure that at least one author is registered for the conference.  (2) The IEEE copyright checklist is completed.  (3)  The paper follows the IEEE template formatting.  (4) All authors listed match those on the paper. (5) The abstract and title match exactly between the EDAS entry and uploaded paper. (6) The paper is in PDF format.