IMFD Alternate Director was conference-chair at the most important meeting on database theory

There are certain conferences in the area of computing that have more visibility and renown worldwide and, therefore, attract a greater number of papers from researchers from different latitudes. In the area of database theory, one of the most relevant is the International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT), which is held annually in a European city and which this year took place in Lisbon, Portugal, between March 26 and 28.

Pablo Barceló, alternate director of the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data (IMFD) and professor of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chile, served as conference chair of the 22nd version of ICDT.

"In this conference, researchers submit papers and there is a program committee of 22 scientists in the field - a sort of curators - who choose the selected papers and design the final program of the conference," explains Pablo Barceló. Each year, a chair is appointed, who is the person who chooses the program committee, directs them and has the last word on the papers that will be selected.

"It's a tremendous honor to be chosen to chair one of these conferences. It's something that doesn't happen again, it only happens once per conference, and I prepared for it for two years. If you look at who has done it, they are all leaders in research in this field. They not only reward your scientific visibility, but also how much you have cooperated with the community in the field, that is, helped to create networks", adds the researcher, who tried to give a different profile to this 22nd version: that not only very theoretical papers were accepted, but also articles that talked about new topics or that have an impact on novel applications, such as machine learning, or topics relevant to the industry.

The winning paper -the best paper award- was an article from the University of Oxford, on algorithms for the efficient evaluation of database queries. Due to his role as ICDT conference chair, for the next three years, Pablo Barceló will be part of the organizing committee of the competition -the ICDT council-, which in turn defines the chairs of the future editions of this important meeting.

More information about ICDT, in this link: http://edbticdt2019.inesc-id.pt