We invite students from all Ph.D. granting institutions who are in the process of forming or carrying out a plan for their Ph.D. research in the area of Affective Computing to apply for participation in the Doctoral Consortium (DC) of the Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Conference (ACII 2026). DC is a forum for Ph.D. students to share ideas about their research, developments, and applications in affective computing. The students will be able to present their work to a group of mentors and peers from an international community, receive feedback on their doctoral research plan and progress, and build a cohort of young researchers interested in Affective Computing.

Who Should Apply?

Students from any Ph.D. granting institution whose research falls within Affective Computing are encouraged to apply. Although we encourage applications from students at any stage of doctoral training, the DC will most benefit students forming or developing their doctoral research. These students will have passed their qualifiers or have completed most of their coursework, will be planning or developing their dissertation research proposal, and will not be very close to completing their dissertation research.

Submission Guidelines

Ph.D. students in an area related to Affective Computing are invited to submit the following materials:

1. Extended Abstract (4 pages + 1 page for references; please find the IEEE templates under the ‘Instructions for Authors’ section here): A description of the PhD research plan and progress. The submissions should not be anonymous. In particular, it should contain:
   • An abstract (120 words max)
     
   • The key research questions and motivation of the research
     
   • Background and related work that informs the research
     
   • A statement of hypotheses or a description of the scope of the technical problem
     
   • The methodology to achieve the objectives and the proposed solution(s)
     
   • A description of the work done so far and a tentative plan for future work
     
   • A statement of research contributions to date (if any) and expected contributions of the Ph.D. work to Affective Computing
     
   • Reference list
2. CV: The student’s curriculum vitae (1 or 2 pages).
   
3. Authorship and Statement from Advisor: Students are expected to be the sole authors of their submission. The application must be accompanied by a separate note from the student’s Ph.D. advisor confirming their student status and endorsing the submission. The note should clearly indicate the student’s progress in the Ph.D. program (e.g., qualifiers passed, pre-proposal stage, etc.). The advisor should email the note to the DC Chairs at dc-chairs@acii-conf.net (see below for further information about the DC Chairs).

Please note that the Extended Abstract and the CV should be prepared in PDF format and submitted through the ACII submission system. The Advisor Statement should be submitted via email to the DC chairs.

Submission Topics, Instructions, and Proceedings

DC papers should be related to the conference topics. The theme of ACII 2026 is “Emotions beyond borders: Multicultural Affective Computing”. Multicultural affective computing is the study and development of systems that can recognize and respond to human emotions across different cultural contexts. It considers how cultural norms, expressions, and interpretations of emotions vary, ensuring that emotion-aware technologies interact appropriately and accurately with users from diverse backgrounds.

ACII 2026 especially welcomes research that explores how best to ensure an culturally senstive applications of affective computing. Topics of interest are provided in the general call for papers. The Proceedings of the Doctoral Consortium will be published as part of the ACIIW 2026 Conference Proceedings.

Papers should be submitted through the conference submission system.

Review Process

The Doctoral Consortium submissions will be evaluated on several factors, including (1) the quality of the submission, (2) the expected benefits of the DC towards the student’s Ph.D. research, and (3) the student’s contribution to the diversity of topics, backgrounds, and institutions, in order of importance. More particularly, the quality of the submission will be evaluated based on the potential contributions of the research to the field of affective computing and its impact on the field and beyond. Finally, we hope to achieve a diversity of research topics, disciplinary backgrounds, methodological approaches, and home institutions in the ACII 2026 Doctoral Consortium cohort.

Attendance

All authors of accepted submissions are expected to register, attend, and present at the Doctoral Consortium and the associated poster session.

Important Dates

All deadlines are in the Anywhere on Earth timezone.

Submission deadline: 20 June 2026
Acceptance notifications: 15 July 2026
Camera-ready deadline: 24 July 2026
Questions

For further questions, please contact the Doctoral Consortium Chairs:

Raiyan Abdul Baten (rbaten@usf.edu)
Helma Torkamaan (H.Torkamaan@tudelft.nl)

dc-chairs@acii-conf.net