A Short Report about the 39th ACM SIGSIM PADS

The 39th ACM SIGSIM Principle of Advanced Discrete Simulation (PADS) conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from June 24 to June 26, 2025.  After the 2024 edition, this was the second time that ACM SIGSIM-PADS adopted a two-phase submission process (with 24 submissions at the deadline in fall 2024, and 28 submissions in February 2025). Four papers (available online) were accepted for publication in a special issue of the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS), and 12 full papers, eight short papers, and 4 PhD contributions to the PhD colloquia were approved for inclusion in the regular ACM Proceedings of SIGSIM PADS. 

The conference started with a keynote given by researchers of the Santa Fe Institute, which weaved together simulation, music, art, and practical irrigation challenges in Bali. It offered a valuable reminder of the broader relevance and creativity behind modeling and simulation.

The best paper award went this year to “Interactive geospatial stories for flood management” by Konev et al. The test of time awards, having been published 20 respectively 10 years ago, went to “RINSE: The Real-Time Immersive Network Simulation Environment for Network Security Exercises” by Liljenstam et al. and “Transparently Mixing Undo Logs and Software Reversibility for State Recovery in Optimistic PDES” by Cingolani et al..  

Authors from 12 countries and four continents presented and discussed their research at the conference. The talks of the conference reflected the wide range and quality of methodological research done in advanced discrete simulation including simulation algorithms, modeling approaches, optimization, visualization, and digital twins, while considering new developments in Artificial Intelligence and being inspired by applications as diverse as computer networks, cyber security, economy, sociology, traffic, and cell biology. 

After this successful 39th edition of ACM SIGSIM-PADS, we look forward to the 40th edition, to be held in Vienna, June 24th-26th, 2026, and hope you can join us. After having played a pivotal role in the steering committee of PADS, Lin Uhrmacher is handing over the reigns to Philiip Andelfinger, starting with September 2025.

A big thank you to Lin, and a heartfelt congratulations to the committees who made PADS 2025 possible!