2013 CRA-W Graduate Cohort Workshop *Thanks to prior speakers for these slides and content. Finding and Training Your Advisor Diane Litman PROFESSOR COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPT UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

Diane Litman Education o MS/PhD: University of Rochester, 1986 o AB: College of William and Mary, 1980 Positions o 2001-present: University of Pittsburgh o Computer Science Department (Associate/Full Professor) o Intelligent Systems Program (Secondary Appointment, Past/Upcoming Director) o Learning Research and Development Center (Research/Senior Scientist) o : AT&T Labs - Research (formerly Bell Laboratories) o Artificial Intelligence Principles Research Department (Member of/Principal Technical Staff) o : Columbia University o Computer Science Department (Assistant Professor) Service o Chair (elected): North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, , o Editorial Boards (current): Journal of AI Research, Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics o Member of many technical program committees o Speaker: CRA-W Graduate Cohort, 2007

My Research Areas Speech and Language Processing o Spoken Dialogue Systems o Enabling Technologies Artificial Intelligence in Education o Tutorial Dialogue o Web-Enabled Peer Review o Automated Essay Assessment Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Natural Language Learning, and User Modeling

Advanced Degree == research Need an Advisor/Mentor At some point in your graduate career, you need to find a research adviser/mentor How do you do that? What is important about the process and that choice?

What is a Research Advisor? Learning to do research – Apprentice relationship: Explains, shows and helps you do research Find a research problem Get a proper background: literature, skills at critical reading and understanding Apprentice research -- o How to identify problems worthy of Ph.D o How to tackle problems o Organize and write papers & proposals o Give talks

What is a Mentor? A Mentor o acts as advocate for your professional & personal development as well as research o develops and lasts over an extended period of time o provides help, advice, contacts, and information o provides encouragement and acts as advocate Research advisor may or may not be a mentor

Need both, or more If advisor not a mentor, need to find one – or more Could be in department or not Could be in research area but in different university or industry Can have more than 1 mentor Finding a research advisor that is also a mentor is ideal, but you can find a mentor elsewhere!

Expectations from the combination of advisor and mentor Beyond research: Help build confidence – encouragement Helping with networking o Conferences, workshops, Helps prepare you for talks Helps prepare you for interviews Helps with funding

Finding an Advisor Two important components o The research o The personality

Doing a PhD is not easy o The research o The personality But the rewards are amazing!!! You need a research area/topic that you truly enjoy and can have passion about You need an advisor that will help you achieve your potential

Where are you now? Best case situation: you know what research you want to do before you even choose your school In this case: you don’t shop for a school, you shop for an advisor

Don’t know your research area? You need to shop for one – but you should consider advisor personalities as you do so How? o Take classes o Talk to professors o Do projects with professors o Talk to other students about the faculty

Finding/evaluating an advisor Is the person in a research area you like? Is the person’s work current and relevant? Funded? Where published? How many students does she supervise? How long does it take students to finish? What is the placement of past students? Are students given responsibilities? How responsive is advisor? o How long to return written materials? o How accessible? o How helpful?

Finding/evaluating an advisor How much freedom does the student have? o Learn to do research – find problems Does the advisor publish with students? What is the order of names? Who presents the papers that are co-authored? Does the person take students to conferences and help with networking? Are the person’s work habits compatible with own?

How to find out Look at faculty’s web page TALK to current and past students! Work on a small project with her/him Take a class from faculty member

Advisor/Student Relationship Not one size fits all! There needs to be a match for you o What motivates you  Praise/criticism? o What is your working style  Groups (what size) versus alone?  Pressured or relaxed?  One track or multi-task?  Quiet or hustle and bustle?  Regular meetings or on-demand?

Barriers to good mentoring Faculty member doesn’t have enough time to devote to mentoring o Being too busy is not acceptable Faculty member and student are in competition with each other Faculty member and student lack personal experience with people of different backgrounds Trust/Respect is not there – different agenda Communication problems – listening Unrealistic expectations

Do and Don’ts Do Listen and consider advice of adviser Talk to adviser if you have problem in research Make sure you are getting what you need from an adviser Talk to adviser if not satisfied Make sure (mutual) expectations are clear Don’t Criticize your adviser in public Get too involved personally with adviser – including intimate relationship

It doesn’t always work out Sometimes an advisor/advisee don’t work out together The earlier this can be identified, the better off you are Be honest and open about any problems May need to simply find another advisor! o Funding implications? o Hard feeling? (hopefully not!) Don’t bad mouth your advisor even if you switch

Advisor/Mentors Advisors and Mentors – very special people in your life. Relationship will have lasting effects on your career and your life A mentor relationship(s) grow over time – and may be found in unexpected places These are important relationships and having a match is something that takes some thought. Take the time to do it right!

Thanks to others who came before me for the deck of slides!! o Chandra Krintz, 2012 o Soha Hassoun, 2011 o … o Mary Lou Soffa, 2007 o.. And beyond..