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My Questions: How can I express interest to receive invitation to serve as a reviewer in a top ranked conference? Currently I am registered with the conference review system (i.e., EDAS) and I receive review invitations from ordinary conferences, but I consider review in high quality conferences. Is there any feasible way to express interest and show that I have technical expertise to judge papers in a particular area. I know that having certain academic qualification (like master and more commonly PhD) and research experience is must to become nominated in top conferences.

Background: Researchers more or less receive invitations to serve as reviewer of a journal or conference. I guess the process in journals to identify reviewers is one of three main channels

  1. Author suggests potential reviewer
  2. Reviewer's profile is in the review system from previous submission
  3. Reviewers can express interest to become reviewer in journals (Some journals have link to register).

and there should be other ways to feed information into the journal review system (that I might have missed).

However, in conferences, it is slightly different because

  1. normally there is no registration link to express interest (I have not seen),
  2. usually there is no option that authors nominate reviewers while submitting a paper to conference (at least I have not experienced the same).

the only way left compared to journal is that reviewer registers with the conference review system for paper submission. So in future, when organizing committee is selecting TPCs and reviewers, they can invite already-registered members to play as reviewers.

ff524
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Espanta
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  • If the conference website is already up, I am pretty sure that the "Organization" or "Commitee" page will be present. What about sending an e-mail to the chairs? I don't think it would harm. In the worst case, the answer would be a polite "No.". –  Jan 09 '14 at 08:22

1 Answers1

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I can only answer for computer science, but around here TPCs of conferences are generally by-invitation only. You cannot (officially) apply for it per se - typically, the organizers will form the TPC based mainly on previous members, filling any openings with outstanding members of the community not currently part of the TPC. Usually, these outstanding people are personally known to the organizing committee, so no formal search or something like that is conducted.

Of course, writing to the organizers expressing interest cannot hurt, but my impression is that if you do not already know them, your request is sadly likely to be ignored.

Edit:

I should add that I did not mean to imply that it is all just a matter of "knowing somebody". Seeing that you are still a PhD student, you will likely simply not be high-profile enough at this point to be considered for the TPC of a really good conference (these usually only consist of eminent faculty).

xLeitix
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  • Thanks, I am also from CS and look for such answer. Your answer is likely the sad truth. – Espanta Jan 09 '14 at 08:57
  • true. since I am graduating, I need to have a clear strategy to enhance visibility in the domain to soon sit in eminent faculty group! – Espanta Jan 09 '14 at 09:47
  • Sure, but I would be more realistic here and aim for TPCs of good, but maybe not excellent, conferences to bolster your CV. Just sayin' that trying to get in VLDB et al. TPCs might not be the most efficient use of your time in your career stage. – xLeitix Jan 09 '14 at 13:07
  • "TPCs might not be the most efficient use of your time in your career stage"; good advise. I like it. – Espanta Jan 10 '14 at 02:54
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    Fresh PhDs are often invited onto TPCs of workshops, and sometimes even major conferences if they had a strong track record publishing as a student. For instance, in systems, you occasionally see a PhD with 2 SOSP and 1 OSDI paper (or vice versa) -- basically a top venue every year. These are very much the exception though. I do agree with the general sentiment that it's "who you know" that matters -- but chairs look for balance (geography, gender, etc) and will usually invite a few people they don't know based on their past performance. – Fred Douglis Apr 12 '17 at 16:54