2015 GradCohort www.cra-w.org @CRAWomen SAN FRANCISCO APRIL 10-11, 2015 Hyatt Regency San Francisco Dear Grad Cohort Participant, We welcome you to the 2015 CRA-Women Graduate 2015 Cohort Workshop! The next two days are filled with sessions where 25 senior computing researchers and professionals will be sharing their strategies and experiences to help increase your graduate school and career success. There are also plenty of opportunities to meet and network with these successful senior women as well as graduate students from other Grad universities. We hope that you will take the utmost advantage of this unique experience by actively participating in discussions, developing peer networks, and building mentoring relationships. The 2015 CRA-Women Graduate Cohort Workshop is Cohort made possible through generous contributions by Microsoft Research, Computing Research Association, National Science Foundation, Google, a private foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Two Sigma, SAN FRANCISCO Intel Corporation, ACM SIGARCH, ACM SIGMICRO, ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SIGOPS, ACM SIGPLAN, ACM SIGSOFT, Yahoo! Labs, Facebook, IBM and in some cases department funds from participating universities/ institutions. Please join us in thanking them for their kind support. We hope that you take home many nuggets and connections from this workshop to help you in your journey to make an impact in the world through computing. Be ready to be inspired, learn, and meet many interesting technical women. Sincerely, — Lori Clarke, Sandhya Dwarkadas, and Ayanna Howard CO-CHAIRS, CRA-WOMEN GRADUATE COHORT WORKSHOP www.cra-w.org Agenda FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015 7:30 – 8:45 Registration • Grand Foyer 7:30 – 8:45 Breakfast • Atrium 2-5 8:45 – 9:15 Welcome • Grand Ballroom Lori Clarke, Sandhya Dwarkadas, and Ayanna Howard First year Second year Third year Grand Ballroom Pacific H-K Pacific D-G 9:15 – 10:15 Presentation and Other Preparing Your Thesis Proposal Networking Verbal Communication Skills and Becoming a PhD Candidate Anna Karlin Kathryn McKinley Nancy Amato 10:15 – 10:45 Break Finding a Research Topic 10:45 – 11:45 Master’s vs. Ph.D. Publishing Your Research (including Interdisciplinary) Rita Wouhaybi, A.J. Brush Holly Rushmeier Yuanyuan Zhou 11:45 – 1:15 Lunch — Tables by Primary Research Area • Atrium 2-5 Ph.D. Non-Academic Career Finding and Training Balancing Graduate School 1:15 – 2:15 Paths and Job Search Your Advisor and Personal Life Rita Wouhaybi, Deb Agarwal, Lori Pollock Gail Murphy Jamika Burge 2:15 – 2:45 Break 2:45 – 3:45 Future of Computer Science • Grand Ballroom Dr. Jim Kurose (National Science Foundation) 3:45 – 4:00 Break 4:00 – 5:30 Poster Session • Pacific L— O & East Corridor 6:30 – 10:30 Reception hosted by Microsoft Research • Grand Ballroom 2015 Grad Cohort | 3 www.cra-w.org SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2015 7:30 – 8:30 Breakfast • Atrium 2-5 Strategies for Human-Human Interaction • Grand Ballroom 8:30 – 9:30 Moderator: Jamika Burge Panelists: Amanda Stent, Gail Murphy, Mondira Pant 9:30 – 9:45 Break First year Second year Third year Grand Ballroom Pacific H-K Pacific D-G M.S. Career Opportunities Financially Supporting Your Ph.D. Academic Career Paths 9:45 – 10:45 and Job Search Graduate Education and Job Search Rane Johnson-Stempson, Tiffani Williams Susan Rodger, Padma Raghavan Amanda Stent, Patty Lopez 10:45 – 11:15 Break Summer Internships Building Your Professional 11:15 – 12:15 Suju Rajan, Building Self-Confidence Persona Rane Johnson-Stempson, Chandra Krintz Mondira Pant, Sami Rollins Patty Lopez 12:15 – 12:30 Wrap-Up & Final Remarks • Grand Ballroom Lori Clarke, Sandhya Dwarkadas, and Ayanna Howard 12:30 – 1:15 Lunch — Tables by Student Proposed Discussion Topics • Atrium 2-5 1:15 - 2:45 Resume/CV Advising Individual Career Advising Grand Ballroom Pacific H-K Cohort Venue HYATT REGENCY SAN FRANCISCO 5 Embarcadero Center • San Francisco, CA 94111 http://sanfranciscoregency.hyatt.com PHONE: 415.788.1234 FAX: 415.981.3638 4 | 2015 Grad Cohort www.cra-w.org Session Descriptions FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015 ● Master’s vs. Ph.D.: Which one to choose? How far to go? ● Networking 10:45 – 11:45 • Grand Ballroom 9:15 – 10:15 • Grand Ballroom This session will address the main differences in This session addresses the skills that are needed career options and in graduate studies between for networking - a very important component of your a Master’s degree and PhD degree. Topics include professional life. The topics include strategies for realistic goals and expectations for each degree and finding a community, meeting people in the field, and various strategies for deciding which degree to pursue. promoting your research and yourself. This session Speaker(s): Rita Wouhaybi, A.J. Brush will also address what you should prepare for, learn, and what to do when you attend conferences, workshops, or any technical meeting, including ● Finding a Research Topic meeting researchers visiting your department. 10:45 – 11:45 • Pacific H-K Speaker(s): Anna Karlin This session will focus on strategies for actively identifying a viable research topic for your Ph.D. dissertation. It will discuss how to choose between ● Presentation and Other Verbal several topics and what you should look for in a Communication Skills topic. It will address how your career plans (e.g., 9:15 – 10:15 • Pacific H-K teaching, academic research, or industrial research) This session will focus on building your oral may influence your choice. It will also describe the communication skills. Topics include strategies for various aspects of a research topic (e.g., theoretical high quality oral and poster presentations. foundation, experimental framework, analytic and experimental results), and it will discuss how to set Speaker(s): Kathryn McKinley reasonable goals and milestones so that you can successfully finish in a reasonable time frame. ● Preparing Your Thesis Proposal Speaker(s): Yuanyuan Zhou and Becoming a Ph.D. Candidate 9:15 – 10:15 • Pacific D-G ● Publishing Your Research Before being a PhD candidate, students usually have 10:45 – 11:45 • Pacific D-G to pass several hurdles, with the last one being the thesis proposal, where you show that you understand Publishing your research is a necessary activity for the literature and layout your plans for completing your future career. This session will discuss avenues a thesis. This session will discuss the goals of the for publication and what is required for the different proposal, an outline of what should be in the proposal, types of publications. Also discussed will be the how to strategically choose your committee, and how ethical concerns of publishing such as plagiarism, to prepare for your proposal defense. This session dual submissions, and author ordering. also covers how to take a lead role in your research Speaker(s): Holly Rushmeier group and publications, strategies for managing your dissertation writing process, and promoting yourself. Speaker(s): Nancy Amato 2015 Grad Cohort | 7 www.cra-w.org ● Finding and Training Your Advisor ● Future of Computer Science 1:15 – 2:15 • Grand Ballroom 2:45 – 3:45 • Grand Ballroom Obtaining a PhD is like undertaking an apprenticeship. Thus, it is very important to have a good advisor and a good relationship with that advisor. This session SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2015 will focus on the importance of carefully choosing an advisor, how to get the most out of your interactions ● Strategies for Human-Human Interaction with your advisor, and the responsibilities of both 8:30 – 9:30 • Grand Ballroom student and advisor in making the graduate research This session will focus on strategies for productive experience successful. It will discuss how to work interaction with colleagues (both faculty and through problems with your advisor, when to consider students), including the opportunities and challenges changing advisors or institutions, and strategies for of being a woman in a computing technology undertaking such a change. It will also discuss the career. Topics include inter-personal interaction benefits of having mentors, in addition to your advisor. dynamics, uncomfortable situations that might arise and how to react, the pros and cons of dating your Speaker(s): Lori Pollock fellow graduate students or department faculty, recognizing and dealing with sexual harassment and implicit bias, and family-friendly policies to look for in ● Balancing Graduate School a working environment. and Personal Life 1:15 – 2:15 • Pacific H-K Moderator: Jamika Burge Panelists: Amanda Stent, Gail Murphy, Mondira Pant This session will address strategies for maintaining balance and a positive perspective in your life during graduate school and throughout your career. Topics ● Financially Supporting Your Graduate will include achieving personal satisfaction in your Education career and family life, balancing your TA duties, your 9:45 – 10:45 • Grand Ballroom course work, and your research program, decision- This session will focus on how to identify financial making strategies when career and family priorities support for your academic studies beyond the initial seem to collide, and re-evaluating your personal and teaching/research assistantship position, including career goals and initiating changes. positioning yourself for research assistantships, Speaker(s): Gail Murphy tracking down fellowship opportunities, and how to put together a successful application. This session will also address how to survive temporary funding ● Ph.D. Non-Academic Career Paths: shortfalls/lapses. Industrial Research & Development Speaker(s): Tiffani Williams 1:15 – 2:15 • Pacific D-G This session will focus on the different career paths for ● new Ph.D.’s in industry and government laboratories. M.S. Career Opportunities and Job Search 9:45 – 10:45 • Pacific H-K Topics will include the challenges and rewards of a non-academic career, skills and experiences needed for This session will be a discussion of the various career success, opportunities for advancement and taking the opportunities for Master’s graduates and how to find initiative, collaborating with researchers in academia or a position that is best for you.