IEEE CIS will be offering two in-person activities at CEC 2025: the Mentoring Program (MP)  and the Paper Development Workshop (PDW). The MP encourages one-to-one mentormentee engagement with an initial focus on providing feedback on the paper presented at  the conference. This activity wraps up with a networking event across all mentee and mentor  cohorts, to foster discussion and enrich the feedback. The PDW aims to guide participants in  developing a high-quality manuscript suitable for submission to IEEE Transactions on  Evolutionary Computation. Both activities are independent from each other and require a  separate registration, which are free of charge to registered participants. For the sake of  clarity, consider the following definitions (please refer to the conference website for more  details): 

- A mentee is an early-career academic (or even a student) who is open to receive  feedback on the paper they presented at the conference.  - A mentor is a senior member of the community who provides support to one to two  students and early career academics attending the conference. 

- A PDW participant is a person who registered for the conference willing to develop  an extended version of their accepted paper (at least partially and before the PDW  deadline). 

Considering the previous definitions, and regarding the MP, please let us know whether you:

[ ] Want to participate as a mentee (early-career academic/student) 

[ ] Want to participate as a mentor (senior researcher) 

[ ] Do not want to participate in the MP 

Similarly, and regarding the PDW, please let us know whether you: 

[ ] Want to be a PDW participant (please be aware that you will have to submit a draft of the  extended paper before the deadline; refer to the conference website for more information) 

[ ] Do not want to participate in the PDW

IEEE CIS Student and Early Career Mentoring Program 

Activities from the IEEE CIS Mentoring and Skills Development Sub-Committee will take  place in-person at CEC 2025 in China this year. Our Sub-Committee offers a unique  opportunity for mentees (early-career researchers) to engage directly with leaders in the  field, enriching their research experience and enhancing their career trajectories through two  main activities. The first activity encourages one-to-one mentor-mentee engagement with an  initial focus on providing feedback on the paper presented at the conference. This activity  wraps up with a networking event across all mentee and mentor cohorts, to foster discussion  and enrich the feedback. The second activity is the Paper Development Workshop (PDW),  which aims to guide participants in developing a high-quality manuscript suitable for  submission to IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation. Both activities are  independent from each other and require a separate registration.  

Who is it for? 

The activities are open to all students and early-career researchers presenting a paper at  CEC 2025, with priority given to IEEE CIS student members. Participation in the program is  free of charge to registered presenters, since IEEE CIS will sponsor both activities.  Successful applicants to the program will be selected based on their paper review scores. All presenters accepted into either activity will be notified explicitly via email. Applications  submitted after the Early Registration Deadline may not be considered for participation in the  program. 

How does it work? 

Mentees will be contacted via email prior to the conference. Before the conference, mentor  and mentee contact details will be shared between them to support Activity I (see below);  mentees are expected to drive engagement with their mentors, e.g. sending their accepted  conference paper to the mentor in advance of their presentation to allow the mentors to read  the paper and provide some feedback. This activity wraps up with the networking event.  Mentees who also wish to attend the PDW (see Activity II) must submit their draft papers in  accordance with the guidelines and by the specified deadline. To clarify again, the PDW is  open to all conference participants; however, to participate, you must apply as outlined  under Activity II.  

What activities should I look forward to? 

This exciting program comprises two main activities: 

Activity I: One-to-One Mentoring and Networking 

The program matches eligible mentees (students and early-career academics) with mentors  (senior academics) from the field to provide mentees with constructive feedback on their  CEC 2025 publication and paper presentation, as well as a community point of contact  during the conference. Please be advised of the following:

● The mentor is encouraged to attend the presentation of the paper (where possible)  and to engage with the presenter, for example, through contributing constructive  questions in the Q&A part. 

● Following the paper’s presentation, mentor and mentee are encouraged to meet up  (e.g., in a coffee break) for feedback and potential follow-up discussion (where  desired). All mentoring activity participants will be invited to an exclusive networking event to  support interaction and networking across the mentee and mentor cohorts. This event will  last for two hours and its schedule will be revealed at a later date. 

Activity II: Paper Development Workshop (PDW) 

The purpose of the PDW is to provide participants in the mentoring program with the  opportunity to hear from and engage with the editorial team(s) of the IEEE CIS flagship  journals. The focus of the PDW is for potential authors to learn about paper development for  publication in top journals and get hands-on feedback on their own papers. At CEC 2025,  the PDW will be run by the Editor-in-Chief and the Associate Editors of the IEEE  Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (TEVC), offering both an overview of the journal  and its priorities, as well as small-group, hands-on sessions for participants. The PDW will  last for a few hours and its provisionally scheduled for Sunday afternoon. 

Application to attend the PDW is required and independent from the mentoring program, i.e.,  mentees are not automatically invited to the PDW, nor vice versa. In order to apply,  participants are required to submit a draft journal paper (which may be based on their  accepted conference paper), following these guidelines: 

● All draft papers should follow the IEEE journal paper submission guidelines in format  and size. Specifically, drafts may, of course, be shorter and be partially incomplete,  but they should not exceed the maximum number of pages. 

● As a minimum, all papers should include an abstract, as well as draft versions of key  sections, particularly highlighting contributions, methodology, experiments, results,  and conclusions. It is acceptable for some sections to be only minimally developed,  e.g. as bullet points. 

● Participants are encouraged to include clearly highlighted questions and areas for  discussion in their draft papers. 

● To apply to the PDW, please indicate your interest in the registration form. The PDW  team will contact you after that to provide more instructions. 

Notes:  

1. Successful applicants will be notified before the conference starts, and as soon as  possible. 

2. IEEE CIS members will be given priority access to the PDW, and in the event of  oversubscription, reviewer scores of the applicants’ accepted conference papers will  be considered.

For any questions, please contact:  

CEC 2025 Mentoring Leads: 

Thambo Nyathi (University of Pretoria, South Africa): t.nyathi@cs.up.ac.za 

Haoyu Zhang (Hangzhou Normal University, China): haoyu.zhang@hznu.edu.cn 

CEC 2025 PDW Leads: 

Ivan Amaya (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico): iamaya2@tec.mx 

Haoyu Zhang (Hangzhou Normal University, China): haoyu.zhang@hznu.edu.cn