5th LATAM School - The Latin American School in Software Engineering
Call for participation
It is a great pleasure to invite students and young researchers to apply for this exceptional opportunity to learn about the possibilities to pursue a career in Software Engineering (SE) research.
We invite applications for the 5th Latin American School of SE, an in-person event co-located with the Brazilian Conference on Software: Practice and Theory (CBSoft 2025), which will take place in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, from September 22 to 26, 2025. CBSoft is the leading Brazilian event for the SE research community and the largest one in Latin America. The LATAM school is scheduled for September 22nd and 23rd, 2025.
The school welcomes undergraduate, MSc, and PhD students from Latin American institutions who are researching SE topics. We will also welcome researchers who have defended their PhD theses in 2024 and are working in Latin American institutions.
The main goal of the 5th edition of the LATAM school is to help new and future Software Engineering (SE) researchers become part of the larger software engineering community. The school will enable participants to explore potential pathways and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities in SE research. Students will have an excellent opportunity to interact with top academic and industry researchers, learn about their careers, and discover how to disseminate results, as well as hear about important topics that are not typically covered in graduate courses.
Beyond the outstanding keynotes, we will provide a mentoring program where students will have the chance to receive feedback from a renowned researcher. Students will be grouped by software engineering topics, and each student will have at least one mentor. The mentoring sessions will occur with students presenting a poster with a 10-minute lightning talk about their research. Also, mentoring sessions will last approximately 30 minutes.
For the first time in the LATAM School, there will be a panel with 3-4 experienced researchers who will answer any questions students ask about SE research and careers in academia and industry.
Eligibility
The applicants must be:
- Ph.D., MSc students from Latin American institutions, or who received the Ph.D. degree on or after 2024, and who work in Latin American organizations/universities;
- Highly motivated undergraduate students might be accepted; and
- Working with software engineering topics.
There are **limited spots** (maximum of 50 students) to be filled for this school that will be given to Latin American applicants. We will select the participants based on different criteria (academic background, research topic, diversity) to ensure the adequacy of the school and diversity. We encourage all those interested in applying!
How to apply?
You need to provide the following documents:
- A structured abstract of your research with the headings: Context/Problem, Aims, Method, and Results (Expected Results), written in English. No specific template is required. The structured abstract must explicitly describe the research plan the students are conducting (1-page limit).
- Poster: The poster should outline your research. It should be a balance of visuals and text. It must present the research overview, research questions, method, results obtained, and future plans.
- Poster dimensions: 122cm (height) and 92cm (width). Try to use large fonts, such as font size 36-48 for section headings and font size 20-28 for text
- If the student has publications, a document containing a list of papers published in journals and conferences between 2022 and 2025. The document must present the Year of Publication, Paper Title, Conference or Journal, List of Authors and Link to the student DBLP pointing to the paper. We will mainly consider the conferences and journals available at CSIndex (https://csindexbr.org) - Software Engineering (list of TOP-15 best conferences and TOP-15 Journals). Students can also consider publications from the following venues:
- Ibero-American Conference on Software Engineering (CIbSE)
- Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES)
- Brazilian Symposium on Software Components, Architectures, and Reuse (SBCARS)
- Brazilian Symposium on Systematic and Automated Software Testing (SAST)
- Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality (SBQS)
- Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development (JSERD).
Submissions must explicitly state the names of the applicant, advisor, and affiliation.
Benefits for selected participants
- Free registration for the School (including lunch and coffee break)
- Free participation in CBSoft
- Possible cost allowances are being negotiated with some sponsors. More information will be provided soon.
Sponsorship
Some participants may receive full and partial financial support to attend the event, subject to available funding.
Sponsorship is possible thanks to the ACM SIGSOFT!
Upon acceptance to the school, participants will receive an email detailing the registration procedure.
Program
The school is dedicated to topics related to career and research in Software Engineering. The LATAM School comprises activities as keynotes, panel discussions, and mentoring sessions
Keynote topics:
- Research methodologies: Robust software engineering research involves the design and execution of scientific methods. The rigor involved in the methodology of a study is key for producing high-quality research that lives up to the high standards of top journals and conferences. Therefore, research methodology is a central topic that will be involved in several school activities.
- Open science: A movement for more openness, collaboration, and transparency in science. Even though all kinds of research artifacts are essential parts of research projects, there is still a lack of awareness and training about them worldwide. We argue that researchers should be aware and trained early in their career to perform research considering open science by construction, i.e., during the study planning and protocol.
- Industry research: Over the years, industry research has become a very desirable opportunity for academic researchers to collaborate with the industry and target more practical problems. However, how exactly this works is unknown to many supervisors, which in turn remains unknown to students. This topic will be covered in school as a new path for the career and a possible collaboration avenue for research.
- Life balance and health: The rise of many mental-related health issues in the world, such as burnout, depression, and impostor syndrome, has led to a need to discuss this subject with early researchers and students. Working in academia can be very unstructured, and many get overly involved in reaching success and ignore their health and life outside the workplace. Because of that, we aim to discuss the need for a life balance for a healthier and truly successful life.
Mentoring program: In the mentoring program, students will be grouped by software engineering topics and have at least one mentor. Students will then present a poster of their ongoing research, answer questions, and receive personalized feedback from the mentor. They can also ask mentors questions related to their projects. Students are expected to apply knowledge obtained from mentoring in their research projects.
Panel with Researchers in Software Engineering: The panel will be question-driven, with the questions made by the students. There will be 3-4 researchers who will answer any questions students will ask that are related to career and research, including all the topics covered by the school that are mentioned above.
Important dates
| Application deadline: | June 30th, 2025 |
| Notification date: | July 20th, 2025 |
| LATAM School: | September 22nd and 23rd, 2025 |
LATAM School
September 22nd and 23rd, 2025, Recife, PE, Brazil.