ISWC 2009 Mentoring Lunch

From iswc2009

First Semantic Web Career Mentoring Lunch

The Semantic Web Mentoring Lunch brings together graduate students and early-career researchers with researchers and faculty for a lively discussion and question-answering session on a variety of topics. If you are a PhD student, a postdoc, or have just started an independent research career and would like to get advice on any of the round-table topics listed below, please join us at the specially designated tables during the lunch break on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009, 12:30-2:00 in Westcot Dining Room. The mentors are all volunteers from the speakers, chairs, and other senior participants at the conference.

If you would like to get advice from mentors on some of the topics below, please email iswc09-mentoring-lunch@csail.mit.edu to sign up for lunch. Space is limited, so please sign up as early as possible. You can also email us to suggest additional topics.

While we are organizing only the mentoring lunch, we expect that some of you might want to have a more sustained relationship with the mentors and we invite you to ask the mentors at lunch about such a possibility.

Tentative list of topics:

• Graduate Students
  • Is grad school right for you ?
  • How to pick the right research area ?
  • Publishing. How important is it for your PhD ? When is your story ready to be published? Which journals and conferences to try? Who should be involved in writing the paper, and who should be coauthors?
  • How to handle problems with your advisor or colleagues

• Early Career researchers
  • After your Ph.D. – what comes next? Choice between postdoc, faculty position, jobs outside academia.
  • Starting your own lab: where and how (tenured/fellowship/Grant) and other issues.
  • Preparing for tenure/promotion
  • Raising kids while pursuing an academic career
  • Publishing. How important is it for your career? When is your story ready to be published? Which journals and conferences to try? Who should be involved in writing the paper, and who should be coauthors?

If you have questions and suggestions, please feel free to send email to iswc09-mentoring-lunch@csail.mit.edu.

Mentors:

Avi Bernstein, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Carole Goble, University of Manchester, UK

Asun Gomez-Perez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

Frank van Harmelen, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Jim Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, US

David Karger, MIT, US

Enrico Motta, The Open University, UK

Organizers:

Lalana Kagal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US

Diana Maynard, University of Sheffield, UK

Natasha Noy, Stanford University, US