Call for AEC Members

For the sixth year, USENIX Security allows the evaluation of artifacts that support a paper: software, hardware, evaluation data and documentation, raw measurement data, raw survey results, mechanized proofs, models, test suites, benchmarks, and so on.

New this year: USENIX Security ‘25 has an “Open-Science policy” which mandates all authors to submit their accepted paper’s artifacts for availability verification. So, to accommodate this, both cycles of the AE will be conducted in two phases (one phase for availability verification and one phase for functionality and reproducibility assessments), as discussed in the Call for Artifacts.

If you are interested in participating as an Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC) member or would like to nominate someone, please fill out the form below. We expect that the AEC will consist of senior PhD students, postdocs, faculty, industry experts, and other researchers. The total workload is expected to be around 2 artifacts to assess (for AE functionality/reproducibility assessments) per submission cycle. In addition, a sub-committee of AEC members will be formed to help verify that all accepted papers publicly released their artifacts (for AE availability verification). This sub-committee can ask for a reduced review load (for AE functionality/reproducibility assessments) in lieu of their contributions (to AE availability verification). The AE chairs will provide more details about the timeline and process via e-mail. The AEC members are expected to serve for both review cycles for USENIX Security ‘25.

As an AEC member, you will not only help promote the reproducibility of experimental results in systems research, but also get to familiarize yourself with research papers just accepted for publication at USENIX Security and explore their artifacts. For a given artifact, you may be asked to evaluate its public availability, functionality, and/or ability to reproduce the results from the paper. You will be able to discuss with other AEC members and anonymously interact with the authors as necessary, for instance if you are unable to get the artifact to work as expected. Finally, you will provide a review for the artifact to give constructive feedback to its authors, discuss the artifact with fellow reviewers, and help award the paper artifact evaluation badges.

Overall, you will gain insights into a modern AE process, get mentoring and guidance during the process, and get a chance to receive a Distinguished Artifact Reviewer Award, granted to AEC members who have contributed with outstanding efforts and constructive feedback to authors during the AE. The AEC members will also be publicly acknowledged on the main conference as well as this website.

How to Apply

If you are interested in becoming a part of the AEC, please complete this online form.

You can reach the AEC chairs at sec25aec@usenix.org with any questions.