The Steering Committee consists of 7 members:

A Steering Committee chair (2-year term)
A Steering Committee vice-chair (2-year term): becomes the chair at the end of its two-year term
Rotating troika of past, present and next PC Chairs (3-year term)
Two additional Steering Committee members (2-year term each)

Current membership

Jukka Suomela, Aalto University, Finland (Chair)
Hagit Attiya, Technion, Israel (Vice Chair)
Christian Scheideler, University of Paderborn, Germany (2022 PC Chair)
Rotem Oshman, Tel Aviv University, Israel (2023 PC Chair)
Dan Alistarh, IST, Austria (2024 PC Chair)
Seth Gilbert, NUS, Singapore (Treasurer)
Yannic Maus, TU Graz, Austria (Member-at-large)

Past chairs

Andréa Richa, Arizona State University, USA, 2020-2022
Yoram Moses, Technion, Israel, 2018-2020
Roberto Baldoni, Sapienza Universita di Roma, Italy, 2017-2018
Shlomi Dolev, Ben Gurion University, Israel, 2015-2017
Antonio Fernandez Anta , IMDEA Netw., Spain, 2013-2015
Sergio Rajsbaum, UNAM, Mexico, 2011-2013
Nicola Santoro, Carleton University, Canada, 2009-2011
Rachid Guerraoui, EPFL, Switzerland, 2007-2009
Alex Shvartsman, University of Connecticut, 2004-2007
Michel Raynal, Irisa, France, 2002-2004
André Schiper, EPFL, Switzerland, 2000-2002
Shmuel Zaks, Technion, Israel, 1998-2000
Sam Toueg, Cornell, USA, 1996-1998

DISC Steering Committee Structure and Rules

The SC consists of 7 elected members. All decisions/approvals must be by a majority of at least 5 out of 7.

An SC chair (2-year term)

• Provides overall leadership.
• S/he is ultimately responsible for selecting the location of DISCs, and finding a local arrangement chair.
• S/he forges ties with other related conferences and workshops, and is also our contact with Springer-Verlag, and with possible sponsors from professional or scientific organizations (such as EATCS).
• S/he chairs DISC business meetings and SC meetings.

An SC vice-chair (2-year term)

• Works with the current SC chair, and ensures smooth transition of responsibilities.
• The SC vice-chair becomes the SC chair at the end of her/his 2-year tenure. So the SC vice-chair remains on the SC for 4 years: first two as the vice-chair, second two as the chair. This ensures organizational continuity.

Rotating troika of past, present and next PC Chairs

• The SC members propose names for the next PC Chair. The new PC chair must be approved by a majority of at least 5 out of 7 including the SC chair. The selection process of the new PC chair is managed by the SC chair.
• The new PC chair replaces the longest-serving of the three.
• The newly selected PC chair may co-opt a PC co-chair, if s/he chooses to do so. In such a case, the co-chair must also be approved. (The co-opted member of the PC does not become an ex-officio member of the SC: His/her role ends with the conference s/he is associated with.)

Two additional SC members (2-year term each)

• Provide further guidance and some degree of fault-tolerance for voting on steering committee matters.

The PC Chair role and responsibilities

• The PC Chair is a position of prestige to be filled by a well-known respected leader in the area.
• The PC Chair is in charge of ensuring the technical quality of the symposium.
• S/he is ultimately responsible for, and decides on, all the technical aspects of the symposium.
• In particular s/he forms the Program Committee (that is then approved by the SC) and issues the Call-for-Papers. In conjunction with the SC chair + vice-chair, s/he selects invited speakers.
• The PC chair (with a subset of the SC including the SC chair, and a subset of the current PC committee) is in charge of selecting papers for journal publication.

Choosing the DISC location and local arrangement chair

• The SC members (and ultimately the SC chair) decide on the DISC location and on the corresponding local arrangement Chair. This choice is entirely decoupled from the selection of the DISC Program Committee Chair.
• Deciding on the location and the local arrangement chair is done as follows:

1. at the DISC business meeting the SC chair asks participants for volunteers to host DISC (this location issue is completely decoupled from who is the PC chair).
2. The symposium participants vote on the proposals at hand. This vote is non-binding: it gives the “sense of the community” to the SC, who is ultimately reponsible for the decision.

Steering Committee Election Process

Public elections occur at the business meeting of DISC as follows (these positions are open to anyone working the “Distributed Algorithms/Computing” community):

Every even year:
The current SC chair steps out, the current SC vice-chair becomes chair, and a new SC vice-chair is elected.
Every odd year:
Up to two additional SC members are elected (so that there are 7 SC members).