Empirical work in software engineering has become substantially more prevalent since the 1990s and is now considered a fundamental requirement of high quality research in the field. This has also led to improvements in the quality and rigor in empirical software engineering research. The ISERN community, the ESEM conference and the Empirical Software Engineering Journal have been instrumental in advancing the standards in our area.

The objective of the symposium is to provide young researchers with the opportunity to present their work to, and receive valuable feedback from, the empirical software engineering community. Some of the most experienced members of that community will serve as the symposium advisors and provide feedback to participating doctoral students. The advisors for this year's symposium include:

• Teresa Baldassarre, University of Bari, Italy
• Danilo Caivano, University of Bari, Italy
• Ross Jeffery, University of New South Wales and NICTA, Australia
• Guilherme Travassos, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Carolyn Seaman, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Fraunhofer Center Maryland, USA

In addition, the symposium will facilitate the exchange of ideas among young researchers. Accepted papers will be published on the ESEM conference website. Submissions and inquiries should be sent to Carolyn Seaman.

This year, the IDoESE chair is:

Carolyn Seaman
University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and Fraunhofer Center Maryland
USA