Machine Learning and Systems Rising Stars 2023

Updates:

[May 5] The notification deadline has been updated to May 15th, 2023. Thank you for your patience as we review all applications.
[March 31] Application deadline extended to April 21st, 2023. All applications will be reviewed based on their merit regardless of when they were submitted. Apply here: https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/mlcr/.

What is ML and Systems Rising Stars?

The ML and Systems Rising Stars is an initiative to identify a cohort of early to late-stage and recently graduated PhD students, as well as other researchers with a relevant background, to develop community, foster research and career growth, enable collaborations, and discuss career opportunities among the rising generation of researchers at intersections of machine learning and systems.

This initiative will have a number of key goals including:

Promoting diversity: A core focus of this initiative is to identify and include a diverse range of ML and Systems researchers in the Rising Stars cohort with particular attention to historically underrepresented gender, racial, geographic, socioeconomic, and other vectors of identity in computing and technology.
Enabling growth: We aim to facilitate research and career growth of rising stars at intersections of machine learning and systems. This includes providing opportunities for attendees to explore research opportunities with invited panelists and speakers from industry and academia, necessary skills building sessions and networking sessions, and highlighting career opportunities across academic, industry, and other settings.
Fostering academic and industry collaboration: Given the strong, collective interest in the intersection of machine learning and systems, we aim to foster collaboration across academia and industry. Providing connections, resources, and equitable access to such collaboration is a crucial step to building community.

An in-person workshop for selected participants will provide an opportunity to interact with speakers and panelists from a range of ML and Systems perspectives, provide skill-building sessions for career growth and development, and encourage presentations and discussions of research efforts and interests to foster community and collaboration. Selected participants will be reimbursed for reasonable travel expenses to attend, including flights, lodging, and food during the workshop.

Workshop Details

There will be an in-person workshop for all ML and Systems Rising Stars participants. The workshop will include opportunities to present and discuss your research, build career development skills, and interact with industry and academic partners in the machine learning and systems area.

Location: TBD (California, USA)
When: 2-day workshop in July 2023
Funding: Selected participants will be funded to participate in the in-person ML and Systems rising stars program. The support is intended to reimburse overheads such as travel, lodging, and associated expenses.

How to Apply

Eligibility:

The ML and Systems Rising Stars program is open to all graduate students and post-doctoral associates (in academic and industry institutions) with research backgrounds and/or interests in the machine learning and systems area. There are no strict guidelines for what year of graduate study applicants should be. Participants interested in both academic and industry career paths are welcome to apply. We strongly encourage individuals from historically marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds, including gender, racial, geographic, socioeconomic, and other vectors of identity in computing and technology, to apply.

Particular areas of research in the ML and Systems space include:

Hardware and systems for machine learning
Efficient algorithms, software, and frameworks for machine learning
Machine learning for systems
Datasets, benchmarks, tools, and methodologies for the machine learning ecosystem
Security and privacy for machine learning
Infrastructure support, profiling, and analyzing machine learning systems
Robust and resilient machine learning
Methods to enable responsible ML systems
Additional intersections of machine learning and systems

Important dates (subject to modification):

Call for participants announced: February 28, 2023
HotCRP application portal opened: March 13, 2023
Application deadline: April 21, 2023 (extended from March 31, 2023)
Notification: May 15, 2023 (updated from May 5, 2023)
2-day in-person workshop July 2023 (US, location TBA)

Application Details:

The application materials include:

CV or Resume
Personal statement (500 words): Potential topics you can address include: your personal background and interests; your career path and future career interests; teaching and service; your personal experiences in DEI.
Research statement (500 words): Briefly describe your research interests.
Motivation and goals statement (300 words): What are your motivations and goals for applying to this program?
Contact information for reference: Optionally include contact information for one (1) reference. We may solicit letters later in the process.

Apply:

Application Portal: https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/mlcr/
If you have any questions when filling out the application, check out this page for clarifications, or contact the organizers.

Program Committee

Amir Yazdanbakhsh (Google)
Ana Klimovic (ETH Zurich)
Brandon Reagan (NYU)
David Stutz (DeepMind)
Francis Yan (Microsoft)
Gennady Pekhimenko (Univ. of Toronto / CentML / Vector Institute)
Hashim Sharif (AMD)
Jeff Zhang (ASU)
Newsha Ardalani (Meta)
Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi (UC Irvine)
Sasha Rush (Cornell Tech / HuggingFace)
Virginia Smith (CMU)

Steering Committee

Vijay Janapa Reddi (Harvard University)
Diana Marculescu (UT Austin)
Joel Emer (NVIDIA/MIT)

Organizing Team

Udit Gupta (Incoming Assistant Professor at Cornell Tech)
Abdulrahman Mahmoud (Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University)
Lillian Pentecost (Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Amherst College)

Contact Us

Email inquiries regarding the ML and Systems Rising Stars program and/or eligibility can be directed to mlsysrisingstars@gmail.com.