Student-Advisor Matching

Tamal Mukherjee

Departing Chair Graduate Admissions Committee-PhD

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA

1
PhD Students: Matching with Advisors

 Potential PhD Advisors

 Faculty names on your admission letter
 Other faculty who indicated they’d like to be your PhD advisor but not on
your admission letter
 Area chairs know who indicated this – keep in touch with area chairs
 Other faculty that you think match your research interests

 So,
 Listen to the research talks (next)
 Talk to the faculty (in next couple of weeks)

 Narrow your advisor choices in a couple of weeks

2
Faculty Seeking PhD Student interested in ….
 Research Area Presentations list faculty looking for new
students
 Some Professors have multiple open problems
 Prof. Absent Minded and Prof. Always in Lab
 Nanobiological brain implant based memory aids
…
 Prof. Always Traveling
 RFID-based professor locator
 GPS-based professor locator
…
 Presentations will be placed on Canvas
 Course is called ‘ECE Graduate Onboarding F19’
 https://cmu.instructure.com/courses

3
Research Areas
 Research across ECE Department partitioned into areas
 Makes herding of open problems from our faculty manageable
 Each area has an area chair to help match you to an advisor
 Phd = ? – Prof. Aswin Sankaranarayanan
 Signal Processing, Comm. and Control – Prof. Yuejie Chi
 Computer Systems – Prof. Vyas Sekar and Prof. Bryan Parno
 Integrated Systems & Technology – Prof. Tamal Mukherjee
 After today
 In some areas, one-on-one meetings between student & potential advisor
 Start the conversation with potential advisor
 In other areas, group meetings between multiple students & multiple
potential advisors: presentations or panel discussions
 Start the conversation with area chair

4
PhD-Advisor Matching Logistics
 Must select (up to 3) advisors (in rank order) by September 27
 Form on Canvas ECE Graduate Onboarding F19 by Sept 3
(https://canvas.cmu.edu/courses/10756) Please inform your first choice faculty as
soon as possible so faculty can let other students know if project is going to be filled
 Complete the web form as soon as possible
 Faculty will meet early October to discuss matching
 Most of you will be notified of advisor by Oct 4
 First choice cannot be guaranteed
 Sometimes matched to a pair of advisors
 Remaining (cross-area matches) notified by Oct 11
 Some of you have been here since the summer
 Potentially already matched with an advisor
 Talk to your current advisor first before talking to other faculty
 Already matched – you must still fill the web form on Canvas

5
PhD-Advisor Matching – Student Guidelines
 Rules for every incoming PhD student
 You MUST speak with ALL professors the admissions office says you should talk to
 ONLY professors with whom student has met CAN be selected
 Matching is not finalized until approval e-mail from graduate office
 Rules for students with one professor they have to talk to
 If student and professor agree on a project, then the student only needs to select
that professor, and can leave the other choices blank
 If student and professor do not agree on a project, the professor MUST still be
selected, and one or two other professors MUST be selected
 Rules for students with two professors they have to talk to
 Both professors MUST be selected – but you get to rank them
 A third professor MAY be selected – can be ranked higher or lower
 Rules for students with more than two professors who they have to talk to
 At least two professors from area chair’s list MUST be selected
 The student MAY also select a third from the area chair’s list or not
 If student decides NOT to select some professor(s) on the area chair’s list, student
MUST inform the professor(s) of the decision as soon as they can
6
Matching Summary
 You play an active part of this matching process
 Take the lead and meet with professors your area chairs tell you to talk to
 Ask to meet with their students
 Visit their labs
 Join them on their group meetings
 Ask their advise for which courses you should register for
 Talk to the area chairs early and often
 Talk to Nathan Snizaski and Stephanie Scott, Program Advisors, too
 Select up to 3 potential advisors by September 27
 Matching is not guaranteed to your 1st preference
 Matching considers both student & faculty interests
 Historically, most are matched to one of the professors listed on their letter
 Canvas (https://canvas.cmu.edu/courses/10756)
7
Questions in the future?

 Your potential advisor(s)

 Graduate Admissions Committee
 Integrated Systems and Technology – Prof. Tamal Mukherjee & Prof. Siyang Zheng
 Computer Systems – Prof. Gauri Joshi, Prof. Vyas Sekar, Prof. Brandon Lucia,
Prof. Carlee Joe-Wong
 Signal Processing, Comm. and Control – Prof. Yuejie Chi, Prof. Aswin
Sankaranarayan
 Dual-degree program with Thailand – Prof. Hyong Kim
 PhD Academic Advisor
 Nathan Snizaski - nathanedward@cmu.edu
 Brittany Reyes - bjreyes@andrew.cmu.edu
 My coordinates:
 tamal@ece.cmu.edu
 412-268-8522

8
Seed Questions

 Where will I sit until I get an advisor ?

 Close to where your potential advisors sit…
 CS faculty are in CIC or HH A-level
 SCC faculty are in PH or HH B-level
 Circuits/Devices faculty are in HH 2nd floor or REH (some students sit
in HH 3rd floor)
 Some of you will have cross-area matches
 Final locations determined by who you match with
 What about computational resources ?
 There are public clusters in WeH (Andrew), HH (ECE)
 Advisors may arrange for computers if you are matched
 If you are not matched we will try to find a way to loan laptops