PANELS

A total of thirty-six panel proposals were received, twenty-nine from the United States and seven international. Each proposal was read by two outside reviewers and evaluated on the basis of 1) potential interest of the topic to the conference, 2) overall quality of the proposals, and 3) likelihood of the proposer being able to deliver a top quality panel. These recommendations were then passed to the Program Committee, which reviewed the evaluations and made the final selections. Of the thirty-six panel proposals, eight were selected for the conference. Based on discussion at the program committee: meetings, another eight panels were commissioned for a total of sixteen panels on the program. The review process insured a balance between relevance, quality and interest for the panel program