STUDENT VOLUNTEERS

• March 18th, 2026: SV lottery registration opens
• June 1st, 2026: Lottery closes at 23:59 AoE
• June 15th, 2026: Notification of acceptance

The SV organization is what keeps CSCW running smoothly throughout the conference. SVs are essential, priceless, and form the core of a successful conference! Being an SV offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the organizing of a conference and to interact closely with contributors, senior researchers, and peers. You must have had student status for at least one semester during the academic year before CSCW. We are more than happy to accept undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students. We need friendly, enthusiastic volunteers to help us out.

We will only be accepting in-person SVs. The registration form can be updated at any time until the lottery is run. We encourage all applicants to update the form once you are more certain about your participation mode later in the year.

Volunteers must be undergraduate, Master’s, or Ph.D. students during the 2026-2027 academic year, who have not defended their thesis at the time of the conference. Students of all backgrounds, regardless of discipline, and from all geographic locations are encouraged to apply. You do not need to have a paper accepted to participate. No previous SV experience is required, but we are looking for enthusiastic and reliable people.

Go to https://new.chisv.org/ and create an account (or log-in with your existing account). Then, go to https://new.chisv.org/conference/cscw2026 to submit your application. The application includes a few questions about your prior SV experience (not required), experience at CSCW, and why you would like to be an SV. The deadline for submitting your SV application is June 1, 2026.

Please note that enrollment in the “CHISV” system does not guarantee your spot as an SV. We will run a random lottery that selects across the received applications and notify individuals of their status (accepted or waitlisted) around June 15, 2026.

Once you have a confirmed spot and conference registration is open, you will be required to register, usually within two weeks. You will receive instructions on how to do this with a special code that will waive your registration fee for the conference. You will still be responsible for any workshop fees.

To ensure a balance between prior experience and new SVs, we aim to distribute the available SV evenly among:

• applicants with prior SV experience
• applicants based in Utah
• applicants who have never SVed before
• applicants from the Global South
• random lottery

We further give priority to applicants who are presenting a paper at the conference.

Additional considerations will be made based on applicants’ availability before or during the conference.

The last way you could get an SV slot is by winning the SV T-shirt Design Contest. The selection process is as follows. After an initial selection made by the SV chairs, a subset of the Organizing Committee and past SV Chairs vote on which design is their favorite in both categories. We can have one person or a maximum of two people as winners of the design competition.

If you win the contest, you get a free SV spot! That means you move off the waitlist, or if you’re already accepted, you can give the spot to a friend (as long as they are also a student). The winner will also have reduced volunteer hours!

The design should be connected to the location (Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A), and be respectful of local culture. Additionally, it should be fun, interesting, and stand out in the crowd.

Please send us front/back designs, noting that we cannot print on sleeves or the extreme edges of the shirts. Designs should be ONE color. In general, this means a black or white design on a colored shirt.

The imprint size is roughly 11″ wide and 13″ high front or back.

Mock-ups should be sent as PDF, JPG, or PNG in medium resolution. If your design is selected as a winning design, we will require the final version in an .eps or .ai format.

You may submit several designs or variations on a single design, should you so desire. You can access the CSCW 2026 logo on the conference website. Please submit your designs to sv2026@cscw.acm.org with the subject, CSCW T-Shirt Design Contest and follow the following naming convention for each of your designs: lastname_firstname_tshirtdesign.ext

This year the deadline is June 1, 2026 to submit your designs. The winner will be announced on June 15, 2026.

We look forward to seeing your creativity!

All SVs agree to an informal contract, where you agree to:

• Commit to 20 hours of in-person work between October 10th and October 14th, 2026
• Arrive in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A on or before Saturday, October 10th, 2026 and stay through the end of the conference on Wednesday, October 14th, 2026
• Pay for your own housing, transportation between your housing and the conference venue in Salt Lake City (Salt Lake Marriott Downtown City Creek) and any meals that are not provided. You can check eligibility and apply for additional travel funding here: https://archive.sigchi.org/awards/gary-marsden-travel-awards/
• Attend the online SV orientation session that will take place some time before the conference. We will aim to accommodate time zone differences
• Be available and perform assigned tasks in a timely manner. Be a helpful, smiling interface to the conference for other attendees, whether you are on or off SV duty

Student volunteers are essential to the success of the CSCW conference. In return for the help at the conference, student volunteers receive many benefits, including:

• Free conference registration
• An SV party and social events with your peers
• Networking events with senior researchers
• Lunches provided each day of the main conference
• …and many more awesome SV benefits are still being planned and discussed, so stay tuned!

While the volunteer duties are not always glamorous, they provide a unique opportunity to interact closely with CSCW contributors, attendees, and other student volunteers. Volunteering provides a structured, cordial environment for students in various stages of their research careers to become part of the CSCW community. Students often report that the ‘social networks’ they build from these meetings are the most significant benefit of serving as a volunteer. Indeed, it is not uncommon for future collaborations, internships/jobs, and friendships to be made through the SV experience.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the SV Chairs via email at sv2026@cscw.acm.org. Reply-to-all on the following correspondence so that all of us stay in the loop and can better assist you.

We can’t wait to have you as a part of our incredible SV program!

• Kirsten Chapman (Brigham Young University, USA)
• Ruchi Panchanadikar (Clemson University, USA)

Contact: sv2026@cscw.acm.org