CNC/USNC-URSI Student Paper Competition

Monday 5:30-7:30 pm
CNC/USNC-URSI Student Paper Competition

The five CNC/USNC-URSI Student Paper Competition finalists will present their oral papers in this special two-hour session. The final prizes for the Student Paper Competition (to be awarded at the Banquet) will be decided by a panel of judges consisting of the Chairs (or Vice-Chairs if designated) of the ten CNC and USNC URSI Commissions. All are invited to attend this session and participate in the question and answer period after each presentation.

2015 URSI North American Radio Science Meeting
July 19 – 25, 2015
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Deadline for Full Papers: March 9, 2015 Extended to March 23, 2015

If you have an accepted URSI Abstract: Submit the full paper here.

If you do not have an accepted URSI Abstract: Submit the full paper by email to the person indicated below:

For US Students: Erdem Topsakal: topsakal@ece.msstate.edu
For Canadian Students: Frank Prato: prato@lawsonimaging.ca

Download Instructions

The Canadian National Committee (CNC) and the United States National Committee (USNC) of URSI are pleased to announce a Student Paper Competition to be held at the 2015 North American Radio Science Meeting in Vancouver. This competition is jointly administered by CNC-URSI and USNC-URSI, and is open to all graduate students participating in the conference that are enrolled at colleges or universities in Canada or the U.S.

Prizes will be awarded to five graduate student papers. Awards (payable in USD) will be made for

  • First Prize in the amount of $1000
  • Second Prize in the amount of $750
  • Third Prize in the amount of $500
  • Forth Prize in the amount of $250
  • Fifth Prize in the amount of $150

The deadline for submission of full papers is Monday, March 23, 2015. The five student finalists will present their papers during a special half-session devoted to the Student Paper Competition, which will be held during the conference (details on this will be posted later). Presentations will follow the normal style of URSI presentations (20 minutes total, including time for questions and answers). All Student Paper Competition participants (including finalists and non-finalists) are encouraged to submit their competition papers for publication in the journal Radio Science or another journal of their choice.

Rules and Guidelines for Paper Preparation

  1. In addition to submitting a one-page abstract in the standard USNC-URSI format, a student must write, as first author, a full paper of up to 25 pages in length (including figures and references). The full paper must be submitted according to the instructions in the red box above, no later than March 23, 2015.
  2. The topic of the paper must be related to the field of one of URSI's 10 Commissions. Students must indicate to which URSI Commission or Commissions (maximum of two) the topic of their paper is most relevant.
  3. The paper must be in English and in the single-column manuscript format, as specified for the journal Radio Science and available on-line at
    http://www.agu.org/pubs/authors/manuscript_tools/journals/manuscript_prep.shtml
    (Click on “Publications”, then “Journals”, then “Radio Science [Submit]”, then “Submit an Article”, then “Author Instructions”, and then you will see “Author Resources”.)
    The length of the paper must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages, including figures and references. The text and caption font must be 12-point Times Roman. In using the Radio Science manuscript format, line numbers are not required, nor is it essential to start each Section on a new page.
  4. University students in normal pursuit of an M.S. or Ph.D. degree are eligible to enter a paper in the competition. The student must be enrolled in a college or university in either Canada or the U.S. at the time of submission.
  5. Each student may submit only one paper to the Student Paper Competition. In addition, the paper must be the unaided work of only one graduate student (the lead author of the paper). The usual guidance provided to a graduate student by a research advisor and/or supervising professor is consistent with this rule, as is the co-authorship of the paper by the advisor or professor. In case of co-authorship, a letter from each advisor stating his/her level of contribution explicitly must accompany the paper upon submission. This letter should be appended as the last page of the PDF file of the paper.
  6. A paper which is submitted to a journal before March 23, 2015 is ineligible. However, a student is encouraged to submit his/her paper to a journal after this date.
  7. The five finalists in the USNC-URSI Student Paper Competition are requested to present their papers in both the regular session and the special Student Paper Competition session, since the finalists will be selected after the program for the conference has been finalized.
Questions regarding the competition should be addressed to:

CNC-URSI: Dr. Frank Prato, Lawson Health Research Institute, at
prato@lawsonimaging.ca

USNC-URSI: Prof. Erdem Topsakal, Mississippi State University, at
topsakal@ece.msstate.edu