CALL FOR AREA CHAIRS

Application to Join the Program Committee for MICCAI 2021

We invite researchers who have been active in past MICCAI conferences to volunteer to serve on the program committee as Area Chairs (ACs). The quality of the conference depends heavily on the paper selection process; and in turn, this hinges on bringing together the best possible team of Area Chairs. We hope that this call for program committee membership can attract the right mix of people with complementary expertise to join the MICCAI team and deliver an attractive conference for the whole community.

Please keep in mind that not all applications can be selected. In a first phase, there will be approximately 75 ACs initially recruited, with a mix of MIC, CAI and MICCAI experts and of senior and more junior candidates, aiming for gender, topic, and geographic diversity. After paper submission, we may invite additional ACs from the database of applicants to complement the breadth and depth of expertise required on the program committee.

Being an Area Chair is a demanding task that involves: assigning reviewers, managing the review process and providing meta-reviews for approximately 25 papers; providing a meta review for and ranking an additional 15-20 papers after the rebuttal period; and proposing outstanding papers for orals and awards. As with previous MICCAI meetings, the CMT system will be used to manage the process and paper assignment to ACs will be completed automatically using the latest version of the Toronto Paper Matching System (TPMS). The CMT will be used to manage conflicts. ACs will report to the Program Chairs who will oversee the process.

To understand the responsibilities and time commitments of the Area Chairs, please carefully read the details below before you apply. Note that there will not be any face-to-face program committee meetings. Instead, you will be expected to participate in two teleconferences, the first in early March for orientation and the second in June 2021 to discuss the final program and collect feedback on the process. These will be held in two different time zones to accommodate the geographical spread of our community. All program committee members will be expected to participate in one of the teleconferences to not only help create the final program, but also to provide feedback for the overall MICCAI peer review process.

In recognition of your efforts, your name will be mentioned in the conference program, proceedings and conference website. We are also planning a thank-you event at the conference and will be exploring further community-building activities for MICCAI 2021 involving our program committee members.

Schedule of Program Committee Duties

You will be asked to update your subject areas in CMT and upload your relevant papers to TPMS by the end of February. An initial teleconference will be held in March to explain the full review process and to discuss reviewing criteria. After the full paper submission deadline on 3^rd March 2021, the first phase of your work will run from 11-17 March 2021 for the initial reviewer assignment period and it is essential that you are available during this week. The paper review period will run from 31 March - 20 April during which time you are expected to monitor the progress of the reviewers and communicate with them to request for further information in reviews where needed. Between 20 April-7 May you will need to provide feedback for authors and recommend papers for accept, reject or rebuttal. The second phase will then start once the rebuttals have been submitted and between 22 May - 4 June you will be asked to provide final rankings on your original paper allocations. In addition, you will be asked to act as a meta-reviewer and rank a further 15-20 papers. These are time intensive tasks and it is essential that you will be available during these crucial periods. Your responsibilities will end with the program committee teleconferences in June 2021. A detailed timeline is posted on the Conference webpage.

Applying to serve as an Area Chair

We invite all experienced researchers who have been active in past MICCAI conferences to apply. We expect ACs to have typically at least three years research experience since PhD or equivalent, have attended and reviewed for MICCAI conferences at least three times, and have published at least three MICCAI conference papers as first or last author.

If you are new to the MICCAI community but have been involved in the organisation of high quality MIC and/or CAI events, particularly in underrepresented geographical regions, please provide the relevant information about these alternative events. We strongly encourage applications from women and other underrepresented communities and regions.

To apply as a MICCAI 2021 Area Chair, please fill out the web form. Deadline has already passed

The deadline to apply is December 4 2020. The conference Program Chairs will review all applications carefully and will respond by 15 January 2021.

We look forward to your applications.

Best wishes,
MICCAI 2021 Organizing Committe