Choosing a Supervisor, part 8

What kind of collaborator is your potential supervisor? Are most of their research papers written with their PhD students, with colleagues within their own university, with researchers elsewhere, or by themselves? Is their name the last name listed on every paper that comes out of their research group, or are they first authors on several? The answer to these questions gives you indirect evidence as to which type of collaborator they are.

Personally, I try to find a nice balance between these different strategies, avoiding the "my name goes on every paper because it is my research grant" approach that some supervisors demand. Some papers from my group are solely authored by yours truly (e.g., "Formally Counting Electronic Votes (But Still Only Trusting Paper)""); others are co-written by nearly every member of my research group because everyone pitched in and helped, each finding a facet that fit their strengths and interests (" CLOPS: A DSL for Command Line Options").

But not all supervisors work this way. In all honesty, some supervisors, due to over-commitment or neglect, only meet with their students once a quarter, even when their students are begging for supervision. Some you have to book a month in advance for a half and hour, and even then you are not guaranteed that they show up.

Others have an open door policy and, even though they have very full agendas, make time for their students whenever they are needed. I try to be this latter kind of supervisor, but on rare occasion I feel like the former.

The kind of supervisor that is always "missing" is actually a good supervisor for some kinds of PhD students. Hard-working, independent students who like to drill down on a topic for weeks or months in between taking breaths of air with nudges from their supervisor work well in such groups. But if you are the hand-holding type that wants lots of face-to-face time with your supervisor, or you do not really know what you love to do and are good at in research, I would suggest you stay away.

Choosing a Supervisor, part 7

11. Attitude toward IP and Technology Transfer

Some researchers focus entirely on "pure" research, where one follows the research to its very end, damn the consequences or application. Others enjoy "applied" research, where the use and utility of the research is under direct consideration, and often guides, and sometimes even terminates, the work. These agenda extremes are extremely valuable, and we perform both in my research group.

But for research to see the light of day---for it to be in the hands of governments, companies or, dare I say it, the "public," research needs a evangelist, a support network, and a trusted base of experts. This is where those dreaded words, to some, like "spin-offs," "licensing," "copyright," "trademark," "patent," "lawyer," "venture capitalist," and more come to the fore.

What is your, and your potential supervisor's attitude toward Intellectual Property (IP), both with regards to the law and the state of practice, and what are your attitudes toward Technology Transfer (i.e., moving research from a lab to a real company)? Should research be publicly funded, open, and available to all immediately, whatever its use, utility, value, or impact? Should research be co-financed by public or private corporations, with explicit commercialization aims? Something in-between?

Does your supervisor know the state of software patents in the EU? Process patents in the USA? How and when to conduct a patent search? How to write, a better yet, obtain patent from the USPTO? Do they know how copyright law impacts scientific writing? Programming? Do they know when to choose a GPL, a BSD, or an X11-style license, and why?

Does your supervisor sit on any corporate boards? Are they a founder of a startup? Is that company still running? Did it raise a significant amount of capital? Attract a following? Make an impact? Are you interested in someday commercializing research?

Does any of this matter to you at all? If not, why not?

Choosing a Supervisor, part 6

10. Gender Balance and Attitudes

What kind of attitude does your potential supervisor have to gender balance and women in computing? Besides the obvious gender equality statements one can expect, are they actively supporting or promoting women in computing?

In many branches of computing and engineering, and in North American and most of central to northern Europe, the ratio of women to men in computing is quite low. Happily, some researchers work in areas that, for a variety of reasons, are more attractive to women researchers and students than others. Others have a more difficult situation: for example, the number of active, visible women researcher in my sub-discipline worldwide is on the order of a couple of dozen.

How can this situation be addressed? Should this situation be worrisome? Do we need more women in computing, and if so, how do we achieve this goal? Attitudes about and answers for these questions classify supervisors as managers in sometimes surprising ways.

Personally, I come from research groups that had decent, but not fantastic, female representation. The groups I worked with at UMass and Caltech had perhaps 1 in 5 ratio. But ever since then I have had less success. This frustrates me.

For the past five years I have actively tried to recruit woman PhD students and postdocs. But of the perhaps 300 "cold" applications I have received and reviewed for hiring, I have only seen about 5 women applicants. I have also pursued hiring a handful of woman researchers, but none of these cases were successful.

I also give special invited lectures to woman undergraduate students and have participated in summer internship programs that focus on under-represented groups in computing (e.g., women, African-Americans, Hispanics, etc.). But all of these activities seem to have come to naught, at least in a direct and immediate fashion into my research group.

Obviously, if you are an outstanding potential PhD student or postdoc and wish to work with me, please get in touch!

Choosing a Supervisor, part 5

Aside: Over the past few weeks I have been in the middle of a vacation in the USA, a move of my family to Denmark, and starting a new job at ITU. Apologies for the silence in posting.

9. Young vs. Old

Your potential supervisor typically must have a PhD, so this means that they are an "experienced" researcher, but how old are they? On the young side, typically a supervisor is of at least 25/28 years (EU/USA) in age. On the older side, since retirement ages vary from country to country, your potential supervisor might be nearing or into their 70s, or even their 80s. While it is inappropriate to discriminate based upon age, your potential supervisor's age does have repercussions.

Is your potential supervisor nearing retirement? Are they the super-star having just earned their PhD themselves? Something in between?

Supervisors that are at either end of the age spectrum present potential problems, none of which are insurmountable nor intimidating, but should be reflected upon.

A very young supervisor might have little-to-no experience with supervising research themselves. Some universities and supervisors insist that their PhD students gain some experience with supervision, either of undergraduates or MSc students, but this is by no means the norm. Likewise, many quality new professors in the USA obtained their positions directly out of graduate school, so they never held a postdoc position wherein they might have co-supervised a PhD student, a situation that is much more common in the EU.

Also, while one might communicate with a young supervisor more naturally, since you may be in (nearly) the same age group/generation, some people have difficulty working for and respecting a boss that is nearly the same age (or younger!) than themselves. This can be particularly problematic for returning students---can you work for a professor that is a decade your junior?

The dual of this situation is working with a supervisor that is several generations your elder. While they may have enormous amounts of experience and have graduated dozens of PhD students, their core attitudes and perceptions may reflect a different age. This can especially become a tricky situation in fast-moving fields like computing, where research that is five years old is sometimes considered ancient.

Also, to be blunt, an older supervisor may choose to retire, or may have health problems that lead to troublesome situations late in your career. What happens if you are in the final stretch of your PhD and your supervisor decided to retire and move to Florida or, in the worst case, passes away? What is your contingency plan for such a situation?

Choosing a Supervisor, part 4

6. Talk to Ex-students

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do is to speak with current and ex-students of your potential supervisor. They will give you the real story of what it is like to work with him or her, what the research group's character is like, etc.

Some questions to ask include the following: How long does the typical student take to finish their PhD in your potential supervisor's group? What are the outliers like and why? Does the student feel like a peer of his or her supervisor, or are they more deferential? What fraction of students that start a PhD with your potential supervisor actually finish? Has the supervisor lost students to other groups or supervisors? How does the supervisor work with students? How much time does the supervisor give to their students? Do they have an open-door policy?

I am certain that the more outgoing senior graduate students in the group will be happy to share their experiences. If none are willing to speak up, consider that a sign in and of itself. Recent graduates are also much more likely to give you the inside skinny, for obvious reasons.

7. Public Presence

Being a successful scientist is half about doing the science and half about communicating the science. Some scientists communicate strictly through the peer-reviewed research paper, while others use every new "Web 2.0" medium that pops up in recent years?

How up-to-date is the potential supervisor's web presence? Do they use Twitter? Have a blog? Use Facebook? Do they convey research results in a modern and timely manner, or are they more "old fashioned?" Does any of their research occasionally hit printed mainstream media? Are there press releases? Is your potential supervisor ever quoted in the media or seen on television?

What is your attitude toward communicating results? What is the role of the citizen scientist and her relation to the media?

8. Attitude toward Teaching

What is your potential supervisor's attitude toward teaching undergraduates and graduate students? Do they volunteer to give guest lectures at high schools, summer interns, incoming students, and other non-core student cohorts? Do they connect teaching with their research, or are these two main facets of their work lives disconnected?

Or do they think of teaching as an unwelcome burden, their time being better spent focusing entirely on supervising or conducting research?

What is your attitude toward teaching? Do you want to learn from and be inspired by a great instructor, or is teaching a necessary evil? Do you want to work with someone who spends time writing textbooks, or is the only thing worth writing the paper in the number one conference in the area?

Choosing a Supervisor, part 3

This is part three of the post, Choosing a Supervisor.

The next few questions I suggest asking yourself before choosing a supervisor are as follows:

3. What is their noteriety?

The personality and demeanor of a supervisor are critical to your suceess. In particular, their personality needs to "fit" with yours.

Some people work very well under high pressure with a very critical supervisor; others crumble. Some want a very hands-off supervisor and lots of independence. Others want a kid-glove and only to hear positive feedback.

Each supervisor has a very different approach to interacting with PhD students, and often that approach is very consistent over a multi-year timeframe. Some supervisors are just asses, plain and simple, but because they are research superstars, it is tolerated.

Do you want to work for an ass? A nice guy? An introvert? An extrovert?

4. How do they work?

Different researchers work different ways. To be a successful world-class researcher requires discipline and commitment, but it does not necessarily require giving up a social life, a family, and television. The way that your potential supervisor works oftens tells you how they expect you to work as well.

Are they an 9 to 5 type, or will you find them in their office at 11pm? Do they work directly with students in their lab, or do they only "manage" research? Do they seem to work very hard, but without a lot of results, or vice versa? Do they expect their students to work as hard and long as they do, or much harder or longer? Do they have families? Kids?

Do you want to work for a workaholic with a family that they never see? Or perhaps a professor that has found a good balance between family and work? Or a single person completely committed to their career?

5. Theoretician vs. Experimentalist/Breadth vs. Depth

Like many fields of science, computing sees some research that is purely theoretical and often requires nothing more than a pencil, a paper, and grey matter. Other groups eschew such research and focus entirely on an experimental approach, building realistic, non-trivial systems that are evaluated through quantitatively analysis.

The notion of "experiment" also varies from sub-discipline to sub-discipline. Within some communities the notion is quite ad hoc, while in others it is very rigorous.

Finally, some research groups are very focused and deep, exploring one specific topic for many years. Others are quite broad, permitting their students to choose topics from a broad set of topics---sometimes all of computing!

What kind of group do you want to be a part of? Do you prefer rigorous mathematical foundations, or would you rather just build and measure systems? Perhaps you see the value and attraction of both approaches? Do you want to be the single world-expert in one highly-focused topic, or would you rather play in a bigger sandbox, perhaps not digging as deeply?

Choosing a Supervisor, part 2

This is part two of the post, Choosing a Supervisor.

The second question I suggest you ask yourself with regards to choosing a supervisor is:

2. What is their impact and its timeliness?

Some researchers make their reputation once, so to speak, often early in their careers, then sort of just glide on it their whole lives.

Others reinvent themselves every 5-10 years, either by moving to new fields, writing high-impact books, making new fantastic discoveries or inventing useful new concepts. Perhaps they also co-create a startup and give technology transfer a try.

Do you mind working for someone who "was good back in the 80s" when it is 2010?

Choosing a Supervisor, part 1

I have heard the metaphor that choosing a supervisor for your PhD is like choosing a spouse or a parent.

I think that, while both of these have a ring of truth to them, the better metaphor is that your supervisor is like choosing who you, the future you, in a decade or two's time.

When I first went to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I was admitted as one of thirty-odd incoming miscellaneous postgraduate students, as is typical for the vast majority of large PhD-grading research-centric PhD programs in the U.S.A. The majority of time during our first two years was taking graduate courses in computing, being a Teaching Assistant (TA) and helping teach undergraduate (and sometimes graduate) courses, and preparing for our PhD exams and/or building our portfolios.

I was offered, and declined, a RA position by the LASER group, led by Profs. Lori Clarke, Lee Osterweil, and Jack Wileden. Other students in the group at the time included my distinguished colleagues Peri Tarr, Matt Dwyer, and Alex Wolf was a semi-recent graduate.

Their group, at least at the time, ran using the "cog-in-wheel" approach to research groups. In that approach, one of several about which I will write in a future post, students are "given" a project on which to work, and typically that project becomes a key component of their PhD. I was interested in finding my own topic, and at the time I was consumed with distributed systems and computer graphics, so I felt the LASER group was not a good match for me. In the end, after teaching for a year, I took a part-time job as a system administrator for the department and ended up doing an MSc with Chip Weems.

Had someone given me advice like that which I am writing now, I likely would have stayed in that group and gone on to have an equally good career, perhaps with fewer fits-and-starts (good) and less variety (bad).

Now, several universities, companies, degrees (and fifteen years) later, I have seen the full gamut of PhD supervisors, good and bad, and witnessed the inspiration and chaos they instill in research students, fresh and hoary.

Consequently, here are the questions that I think you should ask while choosing a supervisor. I'll post one a day for a week or two, then summarize in a final post.

1. What is his/her research reputation?

Do you want to work for a superstar or an everyman? If you do not really care about their research impact, then there isn't anything to investigate.

But, if you are interested in someone who is very good (i.e., with an international reputation, well-respected, makes an impact, etc.), look to see what program committees they are on. You want to see all "A" profile conferences and better. Look also if they are on the organizing committees of any long-lived high-profile, high-quality conferences. Also look to see if they are frequently invited to give kenotes at major conferences.

Do you want to work for a supervisor who has never been on a program committee, or has only been on committees of faceless conferences of dubious reputation?