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<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b>*** First Call for Nominations: 2025 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award ***</b></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b>The 25th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b>Systems (AAMAS 2026)</b></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b>May 25-29, 2026,
</b></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b>5* Coral Beach Hotel & Resort, Paphos, Cyprus</b></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b><a href="http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=Y29ubmVjdGlvbmlzdHMJCQljb25uZWN0aW9uaXN0c0BtYWlsbWFuLnNydi5jcy5jbXUuZWR1CUFBTUFTIDIwMjY6IEZpcnN0IENhbGwgZm9yIE5vbWluYXRpb25zOiAyMDI1IFZpY3RvciBMZXNzZXIgRGlzdGluZ3Vpc2hlZCBEaXNzZXJ0YXRpb24gQXdhcmQJMzc1CUdvb2dsZV9MaXN0cwkxNzYJY2xpY2sJeWVzCW5v&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcyprusconferences.org%2Faamas2026%2F">https://cyprusconferences.org/aamas2026/</a></b></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 18px; color: #000000;"><b>
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<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">IFAAMAS, the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, is pleased to announce the call for the 2025 Victor
Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">The award is named after Professor Victor Lesser, a long-standing member of the AAMAS community who has supervised a large number of outstanding
PhD students in the area. It is awarded for dissertations written as part of a PhD, defended in the specified period, and nominated by the supervisor (with supporting references), which show originality, significance, and impact, and are supported by high
quality publications.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">Nominations are invited for the award which is sponsored by IFAAMAS and will be presented at AAMAS 2026. The award includes a certificate
and a 1500 EUR payment.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><b>Eligibility:</b></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"> Eligible doctoral
dissertations are those defended between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025 (both endpoints included) in the area of Autonomous Agents or Multiagent Systems.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><b>Submission link:</b></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><u>
</u></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #0F3CC0;"><u><a href="http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=Y29ubmVjdGlvbmlzdHMJCQljb25uZWN0aW9uaXN0c0BtYWlsbWFuLnNydi5jcy5jbXUuZWR1CUFBTUFTIDIwMjY6IEZpcnN0IENhbGwgZm9yIE5vbWluYXRpb25zOiAyMDI1IFZpY3RvciBMZXNzZXIgRGlzdGluZ3Vpc2hlZCBEaXNzZXJ0YXRpb24gQXdhcmQJMzc1CUdvb2dsZV9MaXN0cwkxNzYJY2xpY2sJeWVzCW5v&url=https%3A%2F%2Fforms.gle%2Fxzfax1VCTVimTypu5">https://forms.gle/xzfax1VCTVimTypu5</a></u></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">
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<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><b>Submission deadline:</b></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"> October
31, 2025 (anywhere on earth)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><b>Selection procedure:</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">The selection of the dissertation will be based on the originality, significance, and impact of the work. Evidence of such impact includes
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 favorably.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">The selection committee will be the final arbiter in the decision process. The selection committee might also decide to consult external
assessors, and reserves the right to not award the prize if the nominations do not meet the expected quality level.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><b>Every submitted dissertation must be nominated by the thesis supervisor and must be supported by the following 4 (four) documents,
all of which should be delivered via the Google Form link above by October 31, 2025:</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">a) A link to a PDF file of the dissertation. If the dissertation is not written in English, the nomination must include an accessible
link to a substantial manuscript in English, with the nominee as the first author, published in a peer-reviewed journal or conference.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">b) A PDF that contains a list of publications that have arisen from the dissertation, with links to the published papers.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">c) A recommendation from the dissertation supervisor, on departmental letterhead, nominating the dissertation for the 2025 Victor Lesser
Distinguished Dissertation Award. The recommendation should explain the contribution of the dissertation to the field of autonomous agents and multiagent systems, argue the merit and possible future impact of the work, and highlight, where relevant, how the
work resulted from the initiative of the student. Finally, this document should certify the eligibility of the PhD by asserting that the PhD was successfully defended between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">d) A PDF with the names, email addresses, and affiliations of at least one and 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 (Gauthier Picard,
</span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #0F3CC0;"><u>gauthier.picard@onera.fr</u></span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">). A reference letter should
be no more than 500 words in length, should be on an official letterhead, signed and emailed as a PDF file, and received by the same deadline of October 31, 2025. To ease the recovery of these emails, it is recommended that the subject of the recommendation
letter email be “2025 Victor Lesser Award: Recommendation: <name of="" the="" candidate="">
”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">Note: It is the responsibility of the dissertation supervisor to contact the referees and ensure that their letters (max 500 words, signed,
and on letterhead) are submitted by the deadline.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;">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 attending the AAMAS 2026 conference, where they will receive the award and will give a presentation on the work contained in the dissertation at a special session of the
conference. The cost of attending the conference is not covered by the award.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 16px; color: #000000;"><b>For questions, please contact the chair of the selection committee, Gauthier Picard, at gauthier.picard@onera.fr.</b></span></div>
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