MODELING & SIMULATION CONFERENCES PUT ODU, HAMPTON ROADS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The eyes of the modeling and simulation community will be on Hampton Roads this spring when leading professionals, academics and students in the discipline come together in the region for a series of conferences.

Old Dominion University faculty members and the university's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) will be hosts for some of the meetings and participants in each of them. A total of about 1,000 conferees will be part of the events.

During the last week of March 2007, three major conferences of the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) and the Society of Modeling and Simulation (SCS) will be collocated in the Norfolk Waterside Marriott. Participants from across the U.S. and several other countries will hear ODU President Roseann Runte deliver a combined plenary address focusing on modeling and simulation education at ODU.

"We are calling it Simulation Week," said Andreas Tolk, ODU associate professor of engineering management and systems engineering and a senior research scientist at VMASC. As a member of the executive committee of SISO and the agent-based simulation committee of SCS, Tolk helped to bring the three conferences to Norfolk.

VMASC will sponsor its first Modeling, Simulation and Gaming (MS&G) Student Capstone Conference April 19 at Webb Center on the ODU campus. At the meeting, students from the ODU modeling and simulation graduate program and from other U.S. universities will present their work in concentration areas such as transportation, medical modeling and simulation, education MS&G, and homeland security and military modeling and simulation.

The final event in the spring series will be the U.S. Department of Defense Modeling and Simulation Conference, May 7-11, at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton. This is seminal military modeling and simulation conference and all services will be participating.

Michael McGinnis, VMASC executive director, said the decisions to locate the conferences in Hampton Roads are recognition of the important role the region plays in modeling and simulation. "One way to measure your progress is in the number of significant events like this that occur in your region," he explained. ODU is one of only three schools nationwide offering advanced programs and advanced degrees in modeling and simulation.

Here is more information about the spring conferences:

· From March 25-30 downtown Norfolk will host the Simulation Interoperability Workshop of SISO, the Behavior Representation In Modeling and Simulation (BRIMS) Conference of SISO and the Spring Simulation Conference of SCS. Runte's keynote address will be Monday, March 26, 10:30 a.m. to noon. VMASC offer tours of its facility in Suffolk. ODU will sponsor an Academic Night program Tuesday, March 27, 7-9 p.m., which will include presentations by John Sokolowski, director of research at VMASC, and Philip Langlais, ODU vice provost for graduate studies and research.

Program participants and presenters from VMASC and ODU will include McGinnis; Tolk; Catherine Banks, director of academic affairs for VMASC; Kurt Gaubatz, associate professor of political science and geography; David Earnest, assistant professor of political science and geography; and students Sarah Daugherty, Saikou Diallo, Srinivas Karthik Jakkula, Robert King, Lisa Moya, Ramu Pedada and Charles Turnitsa.

Tolk's model-based data engineering team, including Diallo and Turnitsa, will receive an award from SISO.

· Students participating in the Capstone Conference on the ODU campus April 19 will present their research to an audience of fellow students, faculty, judges and members of the VMASC board of advisers. Winning students in each presentation track will be honored at a banquet the evening of April 19.

· The DOD Modeling and Simulation Conference May 7-11 will be held in conjunction with the Army Modeling and Simulation Conference; Navy Modeling and Simulation Office Technical Interchange Meeting; Air Force Modeling and Simulation Conference; and the Connections 2007 Conference. The overall event is sponsored by the National Training and Simulation Association and hosted by the U.S. Joint Forces Command.