PolDS 2026: 2nd ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Polar Data Science Riverside Convention Center Riverside, CA, United States, November 3, 2026

Polar Data Science (PolDS 2026): 2nd ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Polar Data Science aims to connect the polar science community with the spatial computing community to foster convergent approaches that will address significant questions in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Addressing phenomena such as dynamic modeling of the ice bed, tracking the internal layers of the ice sheet, and investigating causal relationships between ice sheets, sea ice, and atmosphere requires developing new techniques for spatial and spatio-temporal data analysis, spatial machine learning, and spatial data infrastructure.

The workshop’s objectives will be informed by the ecosystem and research from the NSF HDR Institute for Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in the Polar Regions (iHARP), and other major Polar Science and AI research. For example, iHARP brings together 80 stakeholders and leading scholars in data science and polar science to advance our understanding of polar regions and their global impacts on sea level rise by deeply integrating data science and polar science to spur physics-informed, data-driven discoveries.

Submission Guidelines

Types of Submissions

General information

**Full Research Papers. Up to 10 pages excluding references; up to 2 additional pages after references to be used for appendices. All page limits are based on the ACM two-column conference proceedings template.

**Short Papers. Based on the evaluations from the reviewers, the Program Committee may recommend that certain papers are accepted as 4-page (including references) short papers for poster presentation. All page limits are based on the ACM two-column conference proceedings template.

Authors. We will follow SIGSPATIAL 2026 single-blind approach, therefore the names and affiliations of the authors should be listed in the submitted version. The author list is considered to be final after the submission deadline and no changes, including the author order, to the author list are allowed for accepted papers.

Accepted papers. At least one author per accepted workshop contribution (paper, poster, demo) is required to register for the conference (and the workshop) and attend the workshop to present the accepted work. Otherwise, the accepted submission will not appear in the ACM Digital Library version of the workshop proceedings.

ACM OPEN. Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access Libraries website. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. To sustain this approach, ACM will charge Article Processing Charges (APCs) for certain types of manuscripts, listed on Article Types Eligible for Open Access Publishing Under ACM OPEN webpage. If the accepted paper has at least one author affiliated with an OPEN participating institution (webpage with the complete list), the paper’s APC is already covered, and the authors will not pay any extra charges. If none of the authors has such an affiliation, the other option is to pay the APC. To ease the transition in 2026, the ACM has implemented policies on waivers and discounts. The 2026 discount guidelines state that articles where one of the named co-authors is an ACM or SIG Member, the subsidized rate is $250/article (down from the list price of $700), and for articles where none of the named co-authors is an ACM or SIG Member, the subsidized rate is $350/article (down from the list price of $1,000). For articles eligible for 50% geographic discounts, the discount will be applied to the applicable subsidized rate.

For the ACM SIGSPATIAL 2026 conference, SIGSPATIAL accepts and handles requests for waivers for authors who have financial hardship [google doc] according to the ACM Policy on APC Waivers for Financial Hardship webpage. Guidelines for submitting waiver requests will be released along with the camera-ready instructions.

Deadlines:

• Paper submission deadline: August 15, 2026
• Author Notification: September 15, 2026
• Camera Ready Deadline: TBD

Formatting and camera-ready information

Templates and submission. Manuscripts should be submitted in PDF format and formatted using the ACM camera-ready templates available at http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template. SIGSPATIAL uses the Conference Proceedings Primary Article template with two-column format. Alterations to the template, especially to gain more space, will be grounds for desk-rejection without further technical review. All papers should be submitted through EasyChair.

List of Topics

We encourage participation from researchers in a broad range of topics exploring geospatial AI/ML techniques to detect novel patterns within data and promote scientific discovery in the polar regions.

Themes may include (but are not limited to):

• Improving our ability to project the future ice sheet contribution to sea-level rise across varying spatial scales
• New insights into ice-dynamics
• Improved estimate and visualization of the ice sheet and subglacial topography at a global scale
• Lining satellite-based observations of the near-surface with both atmospheric drivers and effects on the ice sheet
• Ensuring FAIR reproducibility of these scientific discoveries
• Accelerating discoveries in the polar regions with geospatial AI
• Improving our understanding of global and local sea level rise.

Organizing, Steering and Program Committee

Organizing and Steering Committee

Organizing Committee:

• Dr. Josephine Namayanja, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Dr. Sahara Ali, University of North Texas
• Dr. Chhaya Kulkarni, Towson University
• Dr. Ratnaksha Lele, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Dr. Devon Dunmire, University at Buffalo

Steering Committee:

• Dr. Vandana Janeja, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Dr. Shashi Shekhar, University of Minnesota
• Dr. Aneesh Subramanian, University of Colorado Boulder
• Dr. Mathieu Morlighem, Dartmouth College
• Dr. Mohamed Mokbel, University of Minnesota
• Dr. Jianwu Wang, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Program Committee

• Dr. Sharad Sharma, University of North Texas
• Dr. Sudip Chakraborty, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Dr. Bayu A. Tama, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Dr. Maloy K. Devnath, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Dr. Tolulope Ale, Microsoft

Venue

Riverside Convention Center in Riverside, California

Address: 3637 5th Street, Riverside, CA 92501

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to Nikki Monczewski, iHARP Communications and Operations Coordinator, at nikkim@umbc.edu

Sponsors

iHARP: NSF HDR Institute for Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in the Polar Regions is supported by the National Science Foundation, award #2118285

Travel Grants

The PolDS workshop organizers are pleased to announce travel awards to help select attendees with travel and conference costs. The funds for the grants come from the National Science Foundation (NSF). More details about the application process will be released closer to the submission deadline.