Open Call for the CHI Steering Committee

From 1st July 2026, the CHI Steering Committee (CHI SC) will consist of twelve members. The SIGCHI Executive Committee has appointed Anna Cox as Chair of the committee. We now invite nominations for candidates to fill the remaining eleven positions (self-nominations are allowed). 

General Responsibilities

CHI SC members are expected to attend meetings, receive and respond to emails and messages on Basecamp (or other tools as required), participate in discussions, and vote on motions, including but not limited to motions on the SC membership, future CHI conference locations and chairs, conference budgets, and the strategies and implementation of the CHI Conference series. Members work in collaboration with other members of the SC, members of the SIGCHI EC, leaders of upcoming CHI conferences, and other members of the CHI community.

In this round of recruitment we aim to recruit eleven members who will initially take on primary responsibility for one of the following roles:

• Vice Chair of the SC (1)
• Conference Governance Liaison (1)
• Technical Program Governance Liaison (1)
• Site Selection Leads (2)
• Chair Selection Leads (2)
• Strategic Leads (2)
• Data Directors (2)

Detailed lists of responsibilities for each role appear at the end of this document.

Terms of office

Tenure for membership of the SC is typically three years. After three years in the same role, the SC member who held that role can apply, via open call, for another role or re-apply for the same role. The maximum time for re-appointment is expected to be no more than six years (2 consecutive terms). Former members can be re-appointed following a break from the committee. 

NB In this round of recruitment, some members may be appointed for terms of only one or two years in order to stagger future recruitment.

Qualifications to serve on the CHI Steering Committee

• Senior level or significant involvement (namely General Chairs, Technical Program Chairs, Papers Chairs, Student Volunteer Chairs, and GC/TPC Chairs Assistants) with recent CHI Conference Organizing Committees (last 5 years), or other comparable experience;
• Regular attendance at the CHI conference;
• Support from employers for the time needed to attend CHI SC meetings and engage in the work of the CHI SC.

Disqualifications to serve on the CHI Steering Committee

Future GCs and TPCs (ie those who have been officially appointed in the role but their CHI has not yet happened) cannot become members of the SC until their particular CHI conference is past, at which point they can nominate themselves (or be nominated) to become a SC Member.

Procedure for appointment

The appointment committee will be chaired by the President of SIGCHI, Neha Kumar and will follow the process below. The appointment committee will also follow relevant SIGCHI and ACM policies, e.g., as laid out in the SIGCHI Bylaws, the SIGCHI Conflict of Interest Policy, and the ACM Conflict of Interest Policy.

• The appointment committee will consist of the President of SIGCHI (chair), Executive Vice-President, Vice-President for Conferences, Chair of the CHI SC, and once appointed, the Vice Chair of the CHI SC.
• The Chair will publicize (using the usual SIGCHI channels) the open positions, the membership of the appointment committee, and the process, including timeline.
• For each open position, the appointment committee:                         
  • Will publicly solicit nominations, including self nominations.
  • May identify potential candidates themselves.
  • May approach potential candidates (whether nominated externally or identify by the committee) directly to assess their interest.
  • Conduct preliminary assessments, including interviews, with all candidates.

   

• The appointment committee (i) may write an assessment of each candidate for other members of the appointment committee to consider, and (ii) may recommend one candidate or rank the candidates. The appointment committee then will select the candidate to invite to fill the open position; this process will be done according to the SIGCHI bylaws.

Send questions to Anna Cox at anna.cox@ucl.ac.uk.

Nominations will be accepted until 5th May 2026.

Decisions will be made by 1st June 2026.

Appointments will begin 1st July 2026.

Responsibilities for Individual Roles

Chair (Steering Committee Chair)

• The chair should liaise with the EC to ensure a smooth working relationship and flow of information;
• Organize meeting agendas, and chair meetings;
• Follow-up on SC tasks that have been assigned;
• Keep track of the schedule and progress of the SC working groups;
• Take corrective action when a GC or TPC does not or cannot perform their duties (i.e., removing conference leaders);
• Ensure SC roles are filled and conduct succession planning;
• Attend the SIGCHI Council of Steering Committee Chairs meeting or find a replacement member to attend;
• Liaise with the EC, as appropriate;
• The SC chair shall have the power to delegate specific responsibilities to the Vice-Chair and other SC members as appropriate. 
• Manage the budget for the CHI SC
• Manage long-term contracts of vendors contracted to the CHI conference series.
• Manage vendors contracted to the CHI conference series who are not performing adequately;
• The SC chair is an ex-officio member of all working groups of the SC.

Vice Chair (active as Steering Committee Secretary)

• Schedule face-to-face meetings;
• Schedule virtual meetings and facilitate face-to-face meeting logistics;
• Minute meetings, or work with administrative support to do so;
• Set-up video conferencing during meetings and provide logistical support;
• Ensure accessibility needs are addressed for online meetings;
• Ensure that documentation of the activities of the SC is up-to-date.
• Manage the webspace and ensure it is up to date;
• Communicate via social media the function and decisions of the SC;
• Monitor social media for topics/issues that need to be considered by the SC;
• Correct misinformation that is observed being discussed online in public forums;
• Organize annual Town Hall Meeting at the CHI Conference.
• Chair meetings when the SC Chair is unable to attend.

Conference Governance Liaison

• Ensure continuity and sharing of institutional knowledge among previous, current, and future general chairs;
• Hold onboarding and follow up meetings with future chairs. 
• Manage the documentation of CHI organising committee roles and milestones together with TPC Liaison;
• Ensure a full conference organizing committee (ensuring diversity of representation);
• Ensure that GCs are aware of ACM, SIGCHI and SC policies 
• Ensure that GCs follow prescribed best practices for accessibility (digital and physical);
• Give formal reports to the SC on GC progress in organising the conference;
• Create preliminary CHI budgets and approve consolidated CHI budgets each year.
• Check, understand and oversee the CHI budget for the current and future CHI conferences (multi-year budgeting);
• Consider increases and decreases to the registration fees;
• Consider the number of paying attendees (to build the budget) and how much registrants of each category should pay;
• Consider the costs of the convention center and the technology for remote participation in CHI budget each year;
• Keep track of the financial objectives for the current and future conferences.

Technical Programme Governance Liaison

• Act as first point of contact for proposals to change aspects of the technical program of CHI (including subcommittee changes, review process changes, PCS changes);
• Hold onboarding and follow up meetings with future chairs. 
• Ensure a standard for the technical program by working with the current TPCs, PCs, and other venue chairs for presentation of content at CHI;
• Ensure diversity of the technical programme venue chairs and papers committee (subcommittee chairs and associate chairs);
• Maintain the standard for the reviewing process in collaboration with the TPCs, PCs, and SIGCHI VP for publications, including the management of the program committee meeting and evolutions thereof;
• Maintain knowledge and advise TPCs around systems, including PCS 2.0, ACM DL, Cobi, Confer, TAPS, etc  and communicate with the current chairs regarding these systems;
• Manage the documentation describing roles and activities of CHI venue chairs together with the GC Liaison;
• Give formal reports to the SC on issues relevant to TPCs organising the upcoming conferences;
• Liaise with SIGCHI VP for operations and VP for publications.

Chairs Selection Leads

• Convene a committee in collaboration with SIGCHI EC for selection of GCs and TPCs
• Conduct outreach and open call for identifying future GCs, TPCs, Paper chairs, SC members, and other SC volunteers while aiming for diverse representation (e.g., geography, research methods, gender); 
• Maintain a list of potential candidates and confidential comments on those candidates provided by the SC members;
• Facilitate voting processes for incoming SC members, GCs, and TPCs;
• Handle conflicts when soliciting feedback on potential candidates;
• Enable committee alignment to finalize the leads and communicate the outcomes to the SC members;
• Process GC and TPC invitations individually to systematically invite future chairs;
• In the absence of a GC/TPC liaison, serve as a liaison to onboard the leads;
• Maintain volunteer list resulting from the annual open call for volunteers;
• Share prospective candidates from the volunteer list and potential candidate list with the CHI n+½ organization committee for development of these candidates;

Strategic Leads

• Chair task forces and working groups made up of members of the SC and CHI Community, related to the long-term strategy of the CHI conference;
• Develop the long-term vision for the CHI Conference: (e.g., Towards CHI 2030);
• Organize discussions around scale of CHI, growth of CHI, feel of CHI;
• Establish ongoing conference objectives, formats, and policies;
• Follow up on evolutions within a conference and assesses its value (usually over a period of 3 years);
• Maintain a definition of the CHI audience year over year;
• Provide alternative models of what CHI could look like, based on working group results and input from the CHI community;
• Develop CHI conference policies;
• Create and manage a schedule for the review of policies;
• Ensure appropriate communication of policies to the CHI organizing committee, CHI attendees, and the larger CHI community;
• Ensure that the conference committee adheres to ACM policies and procedures;

Site Selection

• Conduct and Manage Site Visits together with ACM representatives and the conference planning support vendor (presently Executive Events);
• Conduct site visits for affiliate events as needed prior to GC selection (e.g., offsite conference reception, dinner and lunch venues);
• Maintain strategic timelines for site selection, typically 4-5 years in advance of the conference;
• Suggest regions of interest for future sites to the SC;
• Review and update meeting requirements for the CHI conference and physical program committee meetings (if any) to support long term planning and strategy for future CHI conferences;
• Review and approve contracts related to sites and vendors (eg CC, wifi and AV companies);
• Implement contract approval procedures;
• Maintain and update the Request for Proposals sent to the cities;
• Ensure an adequate facility for CHI conferences;
• Ensure an accessible facility for CHI conferences.

Data Director

• Design and administer CHI conference surveys (in collaboration with SIGCHI EC, CHI SC, CHI General Chairs, and TPCs), and analyze results
• Develop and maintain data pipelines for PCS data, ensuring anonymity and responsible data handling
• Collect and store CHI registration data provided by external vendors
• Conduct other on-demand surveys.
• Communicate the gathered data to the CHI steering committee and to the larger SIGCHI community, by working with both the SIGCHI Executive Committee and the current CHI TPCs, papers chairs, and analytics chair to prepare and release reports summarizing and contextualizing the data.