[Swarmfest2006] SwarmFest speakers, etc.

[Steve Railsback]

OK, my email seems to work again now and Greg is pushing us to get some 
things settled.

1. Speakers: This is where we are farthest behind. Greg says that 
NAACSOS has recruited two speakers, one of whom would be on the day 
(Friday) that overlaps with us. They are Les Gasser (U. Illinois; 
http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~gasser/) and Steve Banks (I have to confess 
I'm spacing on who he is).

**
What do people think of asking 3-4 not-so-famous people in various 
domains to give a longer talk about their work and the state of the art 
in their field?
*Gary An informally agreed to do it for biomedicine;
*I would like to do it for ecology (if that's not too self-serving);
*Perhaps Steve Lansing (anthropologist; partly because he's one of the 
few SFI faculty actively interested in ABM);
*Perhaps an economist like Leah Tesfatsion

*Other suggestions please!
**

2. Registration and abstract submittal: We need to get people 
registering, as the deadline is May 20. I will send out another 
announcement, and I have updated the Swarm web site.

The deadline for abstract submittal is later than the registration 
deadline, but we can promise people to approve their submittal before 
May 20 if they request (if they need approval before registering and 
making travel plans).

3. Classes: Which classes are when should be settled out soon. Mike 
North and Bill Rand should be reporting in soon with the results of 
their negotiation over when Repast and NetLogo classes are. Paul Johnson 
(who is now on the SwarmFest email list) offered to teach Swarm, and I 
think that should be on Sunday.

4. Overall schedule: Greg, are you making a schedule with everything on 
it, or should I start one? Maybe we should just put it on your 
conference web site.

Steve

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