Nominations are invited for the 2012 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation
Award sponsored by IFAAMAS, the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents
and Multiagent Systems (http://www.ifaamas.org) and to be presented at
AAMAS-2013 (http://aamas2013.cs.umn.edu/).

Eligible doctoral dissertations are those defended between January 1, 2012 and
December 31, 2012 in the area of Autonomous Agents or Multiagent Systems.

This award includes a certificate signed by the IFAAMAS Chair and a 1500EUR
payment.

The selection of the dissertation will be based on the originality,
significance, and impact of the work. Evidence of such impact include
publications at highly selective conferences and journals in the field with due
importance given to the AAMAS conference series and JAAMAS. Research output
that resulted primarily from the student's initiative will be considered more
favourably. The selection committee will be the final arbiter in the decision
process. The selection committee might decide to consult external assessors and
reserves the right to not award the prize if the nominations do not meet the
expected quality level.

The dissertation must be nominated by the thesis supervisor and must be
supported by the following documents (the documents must be placed on a web
page and only a link to this page e-mailed to the chair of the selection
committee, Michael Winikoff, michael.winikoff@otago.ac.nz, on or before
February 28, 2013):

1. A PDF file of the dissertation. If the dissertation is not written in
   English, the nomination must include a substantial manuscript in English,
   with the nominee as the first author, published in a journal or a
   prestigious conference.

2. A list of citations to published papers based primarily on this
   dissertation with links to corresponding PDF files.

3. A recommendation from the dissertation supervisor, on departmental
   letterhead, nominating the dissertation for the IFAAMAS-12 Victor Lesser
   Distinguished Dissertation Award. The recommendation should argue the merit
   of the dissertation and highlight, where relevant, how the work resulted
   from the initiative of the student. This document, not to exceed 500 words,
   should also certify the eligibility of the PhD by asserting that the PhD was
   defended in calendar year 2012.

4. The names, email addresses, and affiliations of at most three referees,
   familiar with the research of the candidate and experts in the pertinent
   research area, who will directly email their recommendations for the
   candidate to the chair of the selection committee.   It is the
   responsibility of the dissertation supervisor to contact the referees and
   ensure that the letters are submitted by the deadline.   A reference letter
   should be no more than 500 words in length and should be on official
   letterhead, signed and emailed as scanned PDF file.

Though the nomination is to be submitted by the nominee's dissertation
supervisor, it is required that the nominee has consented that the
dissertation be considered for this award and, if selected for the award,
commits to attend the AAMAS-2013 conference, where he/she will receive the
award, and will give an hour-long presentation in a special session of the
conference on the work contained in the dissertation. The cost of attending
the conference is not covered by the award.