November 6-9, 2023

Santa Cruz, CA, USA

64th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) 2023

Announcements

  • Conference Program is available here.  
  • If you would like to arrange a carpool from the airport, please join the carpool mailing list: https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/focs2023.
  • As part of FOCS’23, we are holding a “Graduating Bits” event on Tuesday November 7, intended for students and postdocs that graduating soon and are looking for an academic or industry position. During the event interested students and postdocs will give a short (2 minute) presentation about themselves and their work, and we will also list them on a website (to be announced later). See below for more information. 

TCS for All Graduating Bits

If you are interested in participating please complete this Google Form (https://forms.gle/zQZMYjMULTZBedvv7) and prepare 1-3 PDF slides to be sent to the Graduating Bits organizers Rajesh Jayaram ([email protected]) and Pedro Paredes ([email protected]) by Sunday November 5 (you will be contacted by email to submit your slides after you submit the Google form).We also welcome everyone else to attend the session, especially if you are looking for postdocs or if your department is looking to hire theory researchers.

Important dates

Abstract submission deadline

March 28, 2023 at 16:59 PDT

Full paper submission deadline

April 3, 2023 at 16:59 PDT

Notification

July 1, 2023

Conference

November 6 — November 9, 2023

Registration

Please register for the 64th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2023)using the button below or this link: https://cvent.me/PnBvXe.

Please email [email protected] if you need any registration assistance. For questions regarding author submissions, please contact [email protected]

Travel

The easiest way from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) or San José Mineta International Airport (SJC) to the Paradox is by airport shuttle: https://www.santacruzshuttles.com, or rideshare (Lyft or Uber). It should take approximately 60-80 minutes from SFO and 30-40 minutes from SJC. If you would like to arrange carpool, please join this mailing list: https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/focs2023

Hotel & Venue

FOCS 2023 will take place at the Hotel Paradox. The IEEE Computing Society has negotiated a special rate of $169/night for registered attendees. Please use this link to book your stay.

The Hotel Paradox is located at 611 Ocean St., Santa Cruz, CA 95060.

Food & Activities

There is a variety of fun activities to do in Santa Cruz.
For a list of things to do in the area, see this list: https://www.santacruz.org/things-to-do/

There are also many excellent restaurants near the conference venue.
For a list of restaurants to visit in Santa Cruz, see https://sf.eater.com/maps/best-restaurants-santa-cruz-california.
For food options near hotel Paradox, see https://www.opentable.com/landmark/restaurants-near-hotel-paradox. Yelp and Google Maps are also good resources.

Travel Awards: NSF Support, Google Research DEI and TCS for All

This year, the deadline to apply for funding to support participation in FOCS 2023 is September 20, 2023

Thanks to generous support from the National Science Foundation, there will be a total of $20,000 in support for FOCS 2023 for eligible US-based students and postdoctoral fellows (to partially support the travel for attending the conference).

Additionally, thanks to generous support from Google Research DEI Initiatives, there will be a total of $2,000 in support of DEI efforts in FOCS 2023. The majority of this funding will be available for supporting students of under-represented groups to attend FOCS’23.

Additional travel scholarships are awarded by TCS for All. The TCS for All Travel Scholarships are intended to support early-career researchers in the field. These scholarships are inclusive and available to individuals who self-identify as minorities in TCS and are open to both US and international students. Priority is given to students at the beginning of their studies.

For international students, we haven’t yet been able to secure any funding. We hope the situation may change before the deadline. 

Reimbursement will be made after the conference (receipts will be required).

To apply, email the information listed below to [email protected]. Please use the following subject line: “FOCS 2023 Travel Award Application”.

  1. Title of paper, if you are an author, and whether you will be presenting the paper.
  2. Whether you are a student or you are a postdoctoral fellow.
  3. University name.
  4. Amount of other funds that are available to you.
  5. A short statement describing your academic standing and interests, your expected graduation date and degree, advisor’s name, and, if available, a URL for a working Web page. Also indicate whether and when you have attended previous major theory conferences (e.g., STOC and FOCS) and whether or not you have received other awards to do so.
  6. (For students) a supporting statement from your advisor confirming your status, recommending your attendance, and describing the availability of other funds. This should be included in a message with your name in the subject line which should be emailed by the advisor to the [email protected], the address above. (Note: vague statements such as “funds are tight” are not informative).
  7. (Optional) The NSF strongly encourages applications from members of underrepresented groups for these awards. Please indicate if you are part of such a group or at an institution that is not typically represented at IEEE FOCS.
  8. (Optional) your demographic information

This information (except for Item 8, which is for information only as part of the NSF grant) will be used to prioritize the awards (see the prioritization for awards below).

You should receive an email acknowledging your applications on September 22, 2023. The awards will be announced around October 1, 2023. Late applications will not be accepted.

Priority for NSF Awards will be based on the following:

  • Student authors and co-authors of accepted papers who do not have other support.
  • Members of underrepresented groups or from institutions not traditionally represented at the conference who have research interests in areas covered by FOCS and whose attendance would broaden participation at the conference.
  • Student applicants whose statements and supporting information make particularly cogent justification for the benefit they will receive from attending the conference.
  • Postdoctoral authors of accepted papers who do not have other support.
  • First-time applicants and students who have not received other travel-related stipends to FOCS or STOC in the recent past.

Organizer

General Chair Alexandra Kolla ([email protected]), UCSC
Program Chair Amit Sahai, UCLA
Program co-chairs Shubhangi Saraf, University of Toronto Thomas Vidick, Caltech & Weizmann Institute
Finance Chair Alexandra Kolla, UCSC
Local Arrangements Chair Alexandra Kolla, UCSC
 SafeToC Advocate  Martin Farach-Colton ([email protected]), Rutgers University
IEEE TCMF Chair Shang-Hua Teng (滕尚华) ([email protected]), University of Southern California 
IEEE TCMF Vice Chair Venkatesan Guruswami ([email protected]), University of California, Berkeley