Thank you for agreeing to be a session chair. This is an invaluable role in ensuring the success of the conference and our growth as a scientific community.

Here are some points to guide you in your role as session chair.

  • A week before the session
    • Consider contacting the presenters introducing yourselves, and soliciting slides for backup (or primary use) and a couple of sentences that you can use for their introduction.
    • Consider reading the articles upfront and preparing a few questions for the speakers.


  • 15-20 mins before the session
    • Encourage the presenters to meet you and test their machines prior to the session. This way the speakers know their turn and you can prepare for missing speakers, technical issues, or missing adapters, if any. Also, know whom to contact in case of technical difficulties.
    • Encourage the presenters to share a couple of sentences about themselves that you can use to introduce the speaker. You can do so a week before the session as well.
    • Make sure you know what follows your session so you can lead the audience to the next event.


  • During the session
    • Introduce yourself as a session chair at the start of the session. Also, describe any practical information that the presenters and audience should know about the session.
    • If a speaker does not show up for any reason, try not to alter the schedule, unless absolutely necessary. This is to ensure that attendees do not miss the talks which they choose to attend. We hope that none of the speakers miss the session, however, if they do, take a break (e.g., dedicate more time to the Q&A of the previous papers).
    • In case any technical problem still persists (that was not found during testing), contact the local arrangements chair.
    • Encourage the next speaker to prepare their system for the talk during the Q&A session of the previous speaker.
    • Be aware of the time allocated for presentations and for questions. You should receive this information from the Program Chairs. If two weeks before the conference you did not receive this information, please send them an email asking to let the session chairs be aware of how the sessions should be run.
    • Help the speakers be on time by showing them a "5 minutes left" and a "1 minute left" text when needed.
    • Discussions are crucial for presenters. Try to encourage attendees to ask questions (or make a point in the discussion) "through the chair". This means that you as the chair choose who speaks next to avoid everyone speaking at the same time.
    • If there are no questions at the end of the talk, be prepared to ask a few questions. You can prepare questions well before the session. Also, feel free to ask questions as long as it does not exceed the allotted time.
    • If a discussion becomes too long or strays away from the topic, feel free to interrupt the questioner and encourage discussion offline.
    • If the discussion is degenerating in any way, politely intervene to stop it.
    • At the end of the session, thank the speakers and audience and share logistics information. For example, where the coffee/lunch break is or when the next session will resume.


    • We hope you enjoy session chairing!

    The guidelines above are inspired by the previous guidelines for Session Chairing by Mark Harman and revised/approved by the 2024 Steering Committee.