MIT EECS hosts workshop for Rising Stars in electrical engineering and computer science

Earlier this month, electrical engineering and computer science researchers from around the world came together at MIT for the twelfth annual Rising Stars Workshop. The event welcomed graduate students and postdocs of historically underrepresented genders who are interested in pursuing academic careers in the field.

When it first launched at MIT in 2012, the EECS Rising Stars Workshop aimed to help women scholars navigate the academic job search process and find the right match for their research. It has since been hosted at schools like the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanford University. This year, the event returned to its beginnings, with Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) faculty helping lead the way.

“This program is an invaluable resource to the next generation of academic leaders in EECS,” says MIT Homer A. Burnell Career Development Assistant Professor, CSAIL principal investigator, and program co-chair Sara Beery. “It provides insight on how to navigate the faculty job market and the first years as a professor from diverse panels of successful faculty and research scientists from historically underrepresented genders. Perhaps even more valuable, however, is the network of mentors and peers they develop through the program, many of whom will remain close connections throughout their academic careers.”

The MIT-hosted program started off with workshop chair Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, highlighting the new Building 45. “It’s a physical manifestation of the College’s three-fold mission: infusing the forefront of computing with fields across MIT, fortifying core computer science and artificial intelligence leadership, and advancing social, ethical, and policy dimensions of computing,” he said. Huttenlocher also emphasized the importance of broadening participation in computing to reflect diverse backgrounds and social needs.

Next, fellow workshop chair Asu Ozdaglar, deputy dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and head of the school’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), discussed how MIT’s extensive efforts are helping expand how many women and minority-gender students major in EECS. “Over the last ten years, we have also been working deliberately on our hiring practices. As a result, each new crop of academic hires has been nearly 50% women for the last several years,” Ozdaglar noted. “Here at the beginning of your careers, the truth is that you’re all very powerful and can chart your own professional path.”

Each panel at the event focused on different stages of the faculty hiring process. The first discussion explored the application process, and included Yiyue Luo PhD ‘24, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington and former CSAIL affiliate. Together, they recommended researchers envision what they could contribute to a department before applying. “Consider whether you’d actually accept their offer before applying,” added Luo.

The workshop then shifted to lightning talks. Huddling into breakout rooms, the researchers introduced themselves in two-minute elevator pitches. For example, CSAIL PhD student Belinda Li presented her work on natural language processing, aiming to make language models more understandable, reliable, and user-friendly. Similarly, Princeton PhD student Sunnie S. Y. Kim talked about improving the transparency and fairness of AI models, while University of California San Diego PhD student Zih-Yun Chiu discussed how she’s using robots to help automate medical operations in dangerous or underserved areas.

At the poster sessions, Rising Stars like MIT EECS PhD student and CSAIL member Pratyusha Sharma discussed her latest research findings. She studies the role of language in intelligent behaviors across AI models, natural communication systems like those in whales, and robots. Recently, her team collaborated with Project CETI to use algorithms to decode the “sperm whale phonetic alphabet,” revealing sophisticated structures in their communicative clicks similar to human phonetics and the ways other animal species interact.

Yael Vinker, a postdoc in MIT professor and CSAIL principal investigator Antonio Torralba’s Vision Group, presented her work on the ways pretrained vision language models (VLMs) automatically produce visual elements. Making these designs clear and compelling is difficult for these models, but Vinker found that VLMs can, for example, combine aspects from different visuals into new images. She also observed that these models can generate clever typography (like a “Rising Stars” logo that uses a star symbol in place of the letter “A”).

Two subsequent panels explored how to navigate interviews and negotiate different offers. For the former, the speakers emphasized preparing a long-term research vision so prospective colleagues can better understand your goals. At the latter, panelists agreed that you shouldn’t be shy to negotiate for more students or summer salary, as examples. Beery chimed in with a valuable tip: “During the negotiation process, be sure to advocate for more compute for AI on behalf of your department.”

The day concluded with lab tours at Building 45. In Beery’s group, researchers showcased how they’re applying machine learning to environmental and biodiversity monitoring. By scaling up this data, her team can find the drivers of environmental changes in salmon habitats, for instance. Down the hall, researchers in MIT EECS associate professor and CSAIL principal investigator Pulkit Agrawal’s Improbable AI Lab demonstrated a walking humanoid robot. They noted that the machine is trained purely in simulation, and without seeing its surroundings, the robot still learns to walk by reading its joint angles.

On the second day, panelists explored topics like recruiting students and postdocs, making an impact, and funding. As one example of their valuable advice, speakers suggested that when you encounter unconscious biases within your research group, you can educate colleagues and foster more understanding about that gender dynamic. Between the panels, coffee breaks, and even a little mini golf, the Rising Stars took in valuable insights about academic careers in electrical engineering and computer science. Researchers walked away from the EECS Rising Stars Workshop feeling empowered by the connections they built and inspired by the conversations the event facilitated.

The workshop’s three other program co-chairs were X-Window Consortium Career Development Assistant Professor Tess Smidt and two CSAIL affiliates: KDD Career Development Professor in Communications and Technology Associate Professor Christina Delimitrou and TIBCO Career Development Associate Professor Stefanie Mueller. Anantha P. Chandrakasan, Dean of MIT’s School of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of EECS, was a workshop chair for the event.