-The Doctoral Symposium at MODELS 2017 brought together nine (9) doctoral students and at least eight (8) mentors who volunteered to spend a day discussing student research presentations. A truly international representation among students and mentors provided a diverse opportunity to offer suggestions and advice regarding the direction and vision of the student PhD ideas. In this document, we summarised the activities and digest the topics discussed during the Symposium.
The Doctoral Symposium at the MODELS conference took place at the Sheraton Austin Hotel at the Capitol in Austin on Tuesday, September 19th 2017. The Symposium provided an international venue for PhD students to interact with academic mentors, other students and MODELS attendees. The Symposium brought together PhD students working in areas related to model-driven engineering applied on different domains. The PhD students had the opportunity to present and to discuss their research goals, techniques and preliminary results within a constructive and internationally diverse atmosphere. The Symposium was intended for students who already settled on a specific research proposal with some preliminary results, but still had enough time remaining before their final defence so that they could benefit from the Symposium discussions. However, there was a student in very initial steps who also also got benefits from the Symposium and contributed to the Symposium. The event was open to everybody. Every student offered a formal presentation.
The participating PhD students, along with the titles of their presentations and their affiliation were:
Session: Requirements and Testing - Jose Bocanegra. Towards a Model-Driven Approach for Context-Aware Software - Mohammed Al-Refai. Improving Model-Based Regression Test Selection - Danielle Gaither. Verification of Nonfunctional Requirements Using Formal Semantics - Alexey Tazin. UML Class Diagram Composition using Software Requirements Specifications
During lunch time, a group of PhD students were allocated in a table with at least a couple of mentors to be able to talk about their research and general advice regarding doctoral research and career advancement.
III. CONCLUSION
The fruitful exchange among mentors and PhD students at the Symposium provided mutual benefit toward addressing promising research ideas for future exploration. Among the mentors, it was agreed that there are many future stars among the student participants and that it will be exciting to watch all of their careers unfold. The Doctoral Symposium will be continue as an annual event at the MODELS conference to foster students and providing such mentoring opportunities. Additional information about the workshop, including pictures of the activities, can be found at: http://www.ece.ubc.ca/m˜ julia/MODELS17DS/call for ds papers.html.