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2026 Doctoral Colloquium

Important Dates: Deadline for submission: 4 June 2026 | Decisions made: 31 July 2026

We invite doctoral students to participate in the 2026 ASIS&T Doctoral Colloquium, which will take place as part of the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology on Saturday afternoon, November 7. This half-day event is intended for doctoral students in the early stages of their doctoral studies, i.e., student who are pre-proposal or still completing coursework, have not begun data collection and analysis, or have not defended their proposals. Students who are writing their proposals and have a completed research design will also be considered.

Successful applicants must be student members of ASIS&T to participate in the Doctoral Colloquium and, upon confirmation of their membership status, will be awarded a 50% discount code applicable to the early bird conference registration.

The goals of the 2026 ASIS&T Doctoral Colloquium are to provide doctoral students with a supportive and critical learning opportunity to discuss their theoretical and methodological issues. As in previous years, the organizers will invite a group of prominent professors and experts to serve as mentors during the Doctoral Colloquium. Participants will have the opportunity to receive feedback and comments about their work, in small group discussion with mentors. There will also be an open discussion session where students can ask the mentors questions about the job search, managing an academic career, developing, and maintaining a research agenda, and other topics of interest. Another goal of the Colloquium is to develop a supportive community within which students can begin to develop a professional network, interacting with peers and senior scholars in information science and related disciplines.

How to Apply:
Students should submit a five-page essay (in English, including references) describing their PhD research proposal or dissertation project and a nomination letter from their advisor or chair, which should be attached to the essay or submitted separated to colloquium co-chairs. All essays must be single author and will not be published. Essays may be shared with assigned mentors to become familiar with each student's research. The competed application essay (2 pages, 12 point font) should be submitted electronically using the ASIS&T conference submission system at: https://www.conftool.org/asist2026/

In your essay, please address each of the following questions:

  1. Problem statement: What is the problem that you are addressing?
  2. Relevance: Why the problem is important?
  3. Related work and literature: How have others attempted to address this problem?
  4. Research question(s): What are the research questions you are considering?
  5. Methodology: What methodologies are you considering?
  6. Implications: What are the potential theoretical, methodological, practical, and societal contributions of your work?
  7. Keywords: Please list 3-5 keywords describing your areas of research interest.

If you have questions, please contact the Doctoral Colloquium Chairs:

Africa S. Hands, University at Buffalo, USA
Denise Agosto, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA

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