PODC Steering Committee elections

PODC business meeting
Monday, July 24, 2006, 8PM

At the next PODC business meeting, we will elect a new chair and member-at-large to the PODC steering committee. Nominees for these positions have been given the opportunity to write a short statement, and their statements are included below (see the sections for chair and member-at-large). If you have any interest in either of these positions, or would like to nominate someone else, please contact Mark Tuttle at tuttle@acm.org.

The primary responsibility of the steering committee is to provide long-term leadership and stability for the conference, and to act as an institutional memory for conference organizers. For year n, the steering committee consists of a chair, a member-at-large, the program chairs for years n, n-1, and n-2, the treasurer for year n, and the general chair for year n. The positions of chair and member-at-large are both three-year terms.

Chair

The chair leads the steering committee. The primary responsibility of the chair has been to find locations for future conferences, and the local arrangements chairs, and to help the local arrangements chairs get started with the ACM and the hotels. A secondary responsibility has, on occasion, been fundraising for the conference and for long-term projects like the Dijkstra Prize. Mark Tuttle is the current chair.

Current nominees for chair are:

  1. Faith Ellen Fich, University of Toronto

    I would be very happy to serve our community by chairing the steering committee of PODC. Besides the duties described, I am interested in improving the review process and establishing some new awards. My first PODC paper appeared in 1984 and I've attended most PODC conferences since 1994. I have been the vice chair of SIGACT and a member of the DISC steering committee, each for 5 years.

Member-at-large

The member-at-large has no specific responsibilities, but has historically been an important voice in committee discussions and decisions. A good candidate is someone with a strong interest in the conference or a long history of conference participation. Idit Keidar is the current member-at-large.

Current nominees for member-at-large are:

  1. Rida Bazzi, Arizona State University.

    Rida Bazzi is an associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Arizona State University. He has been involved with PODC twice as member of the program committee and twice as the poster session chair. His main area of research is reliable distributed computing.
     
  2. Tushar Chandra, Google
     
  3. Michael Fischer, Yale University.

    I haven't been as active lately as I used to be, but I do qualify on the score of having a long institutional memory, having chaired the first PODC program committee.
     
  4. Sergio Rajsbaum, Instituto de Matematicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM)

    I would like to run for this post to help making sure PODC continues to be an exciting conference of the highest academic level. I have been involved some way or another with PODC over the past 13 years, presenting papers almost every year, organizing it in Mexico 1998, and as PC Chair in 2003. I will make my best effort to make PODC even more interesting, visible and prestigious.
     
  5. Michel Raynal, IRISA, Université de Rennes, France

    I would like to run for the member-at-large SC position for several reasons. (1) PODC has to continue to be the top reference in distributed computing. (2) The links between PODC and DISC have to strenghtened. (3) The steering committee has to be balanced including more European researchers. On a more personal matter, my first PODC paper dates back 1987, and I have regularly published in PODC. Moreover, I have been in the steering committee of DISC for more than seven years (member, vice-chair, and chair 2002-2004).