Colleagues, We're still finalizing a few details but PRESENCE 2009, the 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence, in the Marina Del Rey area of Los Angeles November 11-13, looks to be a particularly rich and rewarding conference. In addition to a diverse group of interesting paper presentations, we'll have several demonstrations of telepresence technologies, true knowledge building and synthesis discussion sessions, invited speakers, social events including a conference dinner, and a combination of academic and professional perspectives throughout and in three outstanding keynote speakers: Barbara Hayes-Roth, an internationally recognized expert in intelligent agents and interactive characters; Howard Lichtman, founder and President of the Human Productivity Lab, an independent consultancy covering telepresence and effective visual collaboration industries; and Albert "Skip" Rizzo, Research Scientist and Research Professor at the Institute for Creative Technologies and Department of Psychiatry/School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California who conducts research on the design, development, and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems for clinical assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation. The full schedule and logitistical and other details are on the International Society for Presence Research (ISPR) conference web site, http://ispr.info/conference. With the latest schedule information available, early registration has been extended until Thursday, October 15. We hope to see you in Los Angeles in November! (If you can't join us, we invite you to check out the other resources on the ISPR web site, including the free presence-l listserv) Best, Jacki Morie and Belinda Lange USC Institute for Creative Technologies Conference Co-Chairs Kwan Min Lee (USC) and Matthew Lombard (Temple U) Program Committee Co-Chairs -- Matthew Lombard, Ph.D. Temple University President International Society for Presence Research (ISPR) (215) 204-7182 lombard@temple.edu http://matthewlombard.com http://ispr.info