SWE Webinar: How to Find and Train Your Advisor

With the beginning of the fall semester around the corner, the selection of a research advisor is one of the most important decisions made during your graduate school career. 

Chandra Krintz, a professor of Computer Science at UC Santa Barbara, will lead a webinar on August 8, 2013 at 12p PT that will discuss the role of a research advisor. Additionally, she will expand on the role of a mentor, the task of finding an advisor, and what to do if things are not working out with your current advisor. 

To view the session, the webinars are located under the Learning tab on swe.org. Additionally, you can use this link to be directed to the webinars. There is a large catalog of excellent talks so feel free to browse previous webinars.

Speaker Bio: Chandra Krintz

Chandra Krintz is a Professor of Computer Science (CS) at UC Santa Barbara and CTO of AppScale Systems Inc. Chandra holds M.S./Ph.D. degrees in CS from UC San Diego.  Chandra’s research interests include compiler, programming language, runtime, OS, and distributed systems techniques that increase performance as well as programmer productivity. Her recent work focuses on cloud computing and the AppScale platform.  Chandra has supervised and mentored over 60 students, has published her work in a wide range of top venues, and leads several educational and outreach programs that introduce computer science to young people.  Chandra’s efforts have been recognized with a NSF CAREER award, the CRA-W Anita Borg Early Career Award, the UCSB Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award, ACM and IEEE Senior membership, selection as a 2013 Cloud Computing Pioneer by Information Week.

Graduate Leadership Team Positions

A little more information about the positions we are seeking graduate student members to apply by July 31, 2013 for these positions.

Regional Conference Coordinator

In this position the coordinator will plan graduate sessions for each regional conference.  The coordinator will work with graduate students from each region to provide graduate focused sessions at regional conferences.

International Coordinator

This coordinator will help the graduate community expand globally.  This person will provide a point of contact for international graduate SWE members and will help provide the graduate leadership team with perspectives for sessions and programming desired for international graduate members.

Webinars Coordinator

Graduate SWE Community hosts several webinars throughout the year.  This coordinator would help select topics, invite speakers, and coordinate the logistics with SWE headquarters to ensure webinars are advertised and routinely presented.

Regional Graduate Representative

Regional Graduate Representatives is a pilot program to help coordinator grad members at the regional level.

Organizational Chart

Reminder: Coordinator Applications due 7/31!

Just a reminder– the application for the new coordinator positions is due this Wednesday, July 31!

 

Once again, the three available positions are:

– Regional Conference Coordinator

– International Coordinator

– Webinars Coordinator

 

If you have questions regarding those positions, please contact Shivani at grad-coordinator@swe.org.

New Coordinator Positions

Thank you all for attending our graduate leadership interest meeting! I hope the new format worked for everyone–it was definitely interesting on our end!

 

The application for the new coordinator positions is due by July 31, 2013. Applicants will be notified within the following week.

 

Once again, the three available positions are:

– Regional Conference Coordinator

– International Coordinator

– Webinars Coordinator

 

If you have questions regarding those positions, please contact Shivani at grad-coordinator@swe.org.

FY14 Graduate Leadership Interest Meeting

July 17, 2013: This is the kick-off meeting for the SWE Graduate Community, with a focus on leadership opportunities for graduate students in SWE.

Please post questions/issues that you’d like discussed in the comments section below!

Graduate Leadership Interest Meeting

The first graduate community meeting of FY14 will be on July 17th, 2013, at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific! This meeting will share the many ways graduate students and post-docs can become more involved with the graduate community, including taking leadership roles at the regional or Society level. The meeting will be led by the incoming FY14 Graduate Leadership Team, who will also share their goals for the coming year. If you are looking to become more involved, have ideas or concerns to share with the Graduate Leadership, or just want to learn more about what is being done for graduate students in SWE, this meeting is your chance to learn more and make an impact for FY14!

The meeting will be held online via Google Hangout. If you’re interested in attending, please email Shivani Gupta at shivani.gupta@swe.org, and you will receive a meeting invitation.

Presenting Research at WE13: Deadlines Approaching

Rapid Fires

Just a friendly reminder to submit your WE13 Rapid Fire abstracts by Saturday! Rapid Fires are short, 5-minute presentations about your research to a general engineering audience, themed around the NAE Grand Challenges. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to present your graduate research at WE13! For more information, see the main WE13 Rapid Fire post.

SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT AT THE FORM LINKED HERE by 11:59pm ET on June 15, 2013. 

Collegiate Technical Poster Competition

Graduate students can also submit an abstract to compete in the Graduate category of the Collegiate Poster Competition. Finalists in this competition receive a $250 travel stipend to attend the WE13 Conference, and the top three winners will receive additional cash awards. The submission deadline is also on June 15, 2013. For more information, see the Awards>Collegiate Competitions section of the SWE website.

University of Illinois Hosts weSTEM Graduate Student Focused SWE Conference

weSTEM 2013 Conference

Be inspired, Stay motivated, Grow passionate

The Graduate Committee in the Society of Women Engineers (GradSWE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) is an organization dedicated to promoting diversity in graduate education in engineering and science to enable innovative and creative solutions to the future technical challenges facing society.  While enrollment of women in graduate programs in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields has increased over the last two decades, [1] highlights that attrition among female graduate students in STEM programs may be because women are more likely “missing relationships with advisors or mentors” than men.  Moreover, exposure to the various career options to someone with an advanced degree in a STEM field is lacking at many universities.  Therefore, GradSWE organized the first annual weSTEM (Women Empowered in STEM) Conference, held in the Thomas M. Siebel center for Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Saturday, April 20, 2013.  The goal of the this event, which brought together nearly 60 female graduate students from across 21 disciplines as well as 14 accomplished female professionals, was to provide a forum through which current and future STEM leaders could motivate and inspire each other to develop solutions for the next generation of technical and societal challenges.  The conference was conceived and organized by 8 graduate students working in various STEM disciplines at Illinois: Angeli Gamez and Sofie Leon (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Neera Jain, Danielle Joaquin, Jin Kim, Samantha Knoll, and Ritu Raman (Mechanical Science and Engineering) and Ashley Gupta (Bioengineering).

weSTEM planning committee, speakers, and national SWE leaders

 

 

 

 

New SWE Graduate Coordinators for FY14

I am pleased to announce our new graduate coordinators for FY14, Elizabeth Gregory and Elly Sinkala.

Elizabeth will be the new FY14 Graduate Member Coordinator-Elect. She is originally from Kansas.  She received my BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Kansas, her MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University.

Elly has already begun her role as the WE14 Graduate Programming Coordinator. She is currently a postdoctoral associate at the University of California at Berkeley. Elly recently received her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Graduate Member Coordinator (GMC) works to foster a strong community and network for graduate students in SWE by facilitating communication between graduate students in SWE and SWE graduate student groups, and by representing the interests of graduate students to the Society.

The Graduate Programming Coordinator (GPC) works with a dedicated team of graduate students and professional SWE members to create a diverse track of sessions for current graduate students, and for those who are considering going to graduate school.

Both positions are held for two years, the first year as the coordinator-elect learning the ropes and the second year as coordinator. Elizabeth will be working with Shivani Gupta, the FY14 GMC, and Elly will be working with Marcella Vaicik, the WE13 GPC.

For more information see the graduate leadership page.

Reminder: Renew your SWE Membership

As the latest fiscal year for SWE is coming to a close, just a quick reminder to renew your SWE membership for the upcoming FY14. Membership in SWE has a huge number of benefits, including access to webinars, discounted conference registration, career services, etc.

Graduate Students in SWE have a number of options for membership. SWE members pursuing advanced degrees full-time have the option of continuing as a collegiate member, provided they are not employed full-time in an engineering position or in a field related to engineering and are pursuing a graduate course of study towards an advanced degree in engineering or a field related to engineering or transferring their professional membership to a Professional Back to School. In order to be identified as a graduate student member, your SWE membership profile should be updated with your current academic status including discipline of study and an anticipated graduation date.

Please identify your membership type below to begin the process. All memberships expire June 30 for FY13. Some categories of members may be eligible for reduced dues rate. Please review the Discounted Memberships to determine your eligibility. If you have any questions, or need assistance, please contact SWE HQ for additional support.

Already renewed your membership? Login here to “Update My Information” to ensure SWE has the most recent contact information. For more details on renewing your specific type of membership grade, see below.