1. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 1 CAREER PATHS: How to get started in academia or industry? Barbara G. Ryder Rutgers University

2. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 2 Outline My personal career path Starting a research career How to ensure success? Academia and industrial research environments Differences and similarities

3. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 3 My Trail Brown (Pembroke College) A.B., 1969, Married Jon Stanford M.S., 1971 Worked at Bell Labs (UNIX, C) 1971-76; Had my 2 children, Beth & Andrew Resumed Ph.D studies Rutgers, 1977-82 Finished Ph.D Joined DCS Rutgers,1982

4. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 4 My Trail Graduated 1st Ph.D; Assoc. Prof, 1988 ACM Fellow, 1998 Full Prof, 1994 1989-97 SIGPLAN EC; Kids finish college, 1996 Sabbatical at IBM Research & ENS, Paris, 2001 Have supervised 14 Ph.Ds & 3 MS theses in 25 yrs Collaborative NSF grants w IBM & O/S colleagues, 2001, 2002 Hobbies: Weight training Travel photography Crocheting Cooking Start RESCS in CS1, 2004

5. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 5 Why do research? To satisfy intellectual curiosity To better understand things To be at the forefront of an exciting, technical field To always be learning new things

6. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 6 How to ensure success? Frame long-term questions to be answered Use short-term objectives to subdivide research into manageable pieces –Divide work into investigations that ‘fit’ into a coherent whole –Make progress one paper at a time –Know what it means to ‘solve a problem’ or validate a technique –Re-examine your research achievements at regular intervals, to ensure progress towards answering long-term questions

7. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 7 How to ensure success? Familiarize yourself with previous work from the literature Critically examine previous approaches, questioning generality, practicality, validation Write papers and give talks about your work –Intuition, intuition, intuition –Exercise: do an in-the-elevator summary

8. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 8 How to ensure success? Find your personal style –One at a time vs juggling several projects –Set aside uninterruptible blocks of ‘research thinking time’ in your weekly schedule and obey the schedule –In collaborative projects, what role do you enjoy most? Being a contributor vs being the leader

9. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 9 Research Environments Academia Research university (public or private), Four year college, Two year junior college Combines teaching/mentoring with doing research Offers tenure Requires grant writing to obtain research funding

10. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 10 Research Environments Industrial Research Lab Government (e.g., LRL, Argonne) Commercial (e.g., MSR, IBM Research) Offers mentoring of summer interns Provides funding (at least until you are in middle management)

11. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 11 Why choose either environment? Academia –To interact with students –To be free to choose own research agenda –To have security of tenure Industry –To work on problems with real societal impact –To have access to real HW/SW systems and their data; –To work with colleagues that are other PhDs instead of with students

12. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 12 Comparing Academia w Industry Similarities Must take responsibility for own research agenda Need for self-motivation and self-discipline Can choose environment with possible collaborators Expect research to have impact Expect signs of active researcher –Program committee service, regular conference and workshop attendance –Keeping up with current conferences and journals

13. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 13 Comparing Academia w Industry Differences Who is your ‘boss’? How much freedom to choose and focus your research? Do you need to seek research funding? How is research impact measured? Products? Patents? Demos at developer conferences? Open source contributions? Is it easy to move between these worlds?

14. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 14 Why academia for me? Lifestyle (forever young) Enjoyment of mentoring and teaching Flexible work schedule Always learning new ideas and techniques Tolerant individualistic environment Intellectually challenging job

15. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 15 Interesting Websites Women in academia http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/~hendren/WomenInScience/ Women in CS http://people.mills.edu//spertus/Gender/gender.html CRA-W http://www.cra.org/Activities/craw/ ACM-W http://women.acm.org/

16. GettingStarted, PL SumSch, Austin 5/07, BG Ryder 16 Thank You