1. THE SECRET TO MAKING AN IMPACT
Samira Khan

2. WHO AM I? Samira Khan Post Doctorate in CMU PhD from UT San Antonio
Assistant Professor
Post Doctorate in CMU
PhD from UT San Antonio
Worked at Intel, AMD, EPFL
Research Interest
Building system support for new technologies
Research group
ShiftLab
Committed to building open-source artifacts

3. RESEARCH GROUP: ShiftLab
The name is inspired by the term “Paradigm Shift”, popularized by Thomas Kuhn
Our mission is to make fundamental change to computing

4. End-to-End System for New Technologies
SPECIALIZED CORES
NONO-DRONES
PROBLEM
What interface to expose to applications?
APPLICATION
Software OS
How to partition and offload task?
RUNTIME
PERSISTENT
MEMORY
How to manage memory and storage?
ARCHITECTURE
How to provide efficient
Hardware support?
Hardware
CIRCUITS
MEMORY WITH LOGIC
Basically a whole system stack problem
My group works on hardware, systems, compiler, application

5. How to Build an Impactful
Group?
DISCLAIMER
SECRET: BE A DRAGON
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
MENTORING:
TRAIN YOUR DRAGONS
MY OWN PERILS

6. DISCLAIMER: ADVICES ARE TRICKY
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
Many different paths
People tend to suggest a superset of wish list from all paths

7. How to Build an Impactful
Group?
DISCLAIMER
SECRET: BE A DRAGON
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
MENTORING
TRAIN YOUR DRAGONS
MY OWN PERILS

8. THE SECRET TO MAKING AN IMPACT You are a dragon. Be a dragon.
Don’t be a sheep.
You are a dragon. Be a dragon.

9. HOW TO BE A DRAGON Do not follow, find your own path
Be bold, be courageous, have a vision for your work
“Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.”
Incredible opportunity to make an impact
Complete freedom to work on anything you want. Why waste it on smaller things?
“Shoot for the moon and even if you miss you will land among the stars!”

10. WHAT ARE THE DIFFICULTIES?
Want to change the world,
But first need to train students

11. How to Build an Impactful
Group?
DISCLAIMER
SECRET: BE A DRAGON
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
MENTORING:
TRAIN YOUR DRAGONS
MY OWN PERILS

12. BE A DRAGON: IMPORTANCE OF MENTORING
Train your own dragons!!!
The best leaders only listen and ask questions
They do not impose
They do not rule
Train students to find their own path
Students need ownership to flourish

13. BE A DRAGON: IMPORTANCE OF MENTORING
Facilitate an environment where students lead
Active group discussion and brainstorming
Train students to avoid being a sound absorber
Avoid people who merely say “Yes, yes, yes”
Students need to learn to defend and push back
Critical mass in action, stimulate students right back
“Yes, that reminds me of so and so”
“Have you thought about that or this?”

14. How to Build an Impactful
Group?
DISCLAIMER
SECRET: BE A DRAGON
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
MENTORING:
TRAIN YOUR DRAGONS
MY OWN PERILS

15. MY OWN PERILS: SELECTING STUDENTS
Goal: Find students who want to be dragons
Only qualities that I look for
Motivated
Hard working
Background/research experience does not matter that much
Students pick up skills along the way if they are motivated and hard working

16. MY OWN PERILS: PROVE YOURSELF
Things that worked for others may not work for me
Each person is different, circumstance is different
Example: Junior vs. established professor
Had written 10+ successful proposals during my postdoc
Proposals under my name was getting “Not Competitive” – which means do not work on it
Resulted in top conference papers in ASPLOS, ISCA, HPCA
Know your vision and push for it

17. The secret to creating an impactful group AND TRAIN YOUR OWN DRAGONS
SUMMARY
The secret to creating an impactful group
BE A DRAGON
AND TRAIN YOUR OWN DRAGONS

18. THE SECRET TO MAKING AN IMPACT
Samira Khan