CVPR Daily - Thursday

year. The labs don’t need to fund them for the first year, which gives them the flexibility to try different labs. They can do a project in the lab and decide to change to something different for the second semester. That gives them a bit more freedom to choose in the end. What are the main advantages for a young PhD student coming to EPFL? It opens up many opportunities. One advantage that I mentioned before is the fellowship program. We have a strong computer vision presence at EPFL. Pascal Fua, Sabine Süsstrunk, Amir Zamir, a few other groups in some other faculties that do computer vision, and myself. A lot of machine learning as well. EPFL is a well-known school worldwide, meaning people get opportunities for faculty positions afterward, but also in companies. We don’t have many big companies in Lausanne, but in Switzerland, particularly in Zurich, there are all the big ones. Are Zurich and Lausanne connected enough to say I studied in Lausanne and I go to work in Zurich? Yes, definitely. We’ve started building closer and closer connections with the people at ETH. We’re organizing joint faculty meetings and retreats, and we’re considering what we can do for summer schools, so we’re trying to expand this a bit. Is there anything that another university does that you are envious of? That’s an interesting question. Not really. I think we have a great PhD program. Of course, some schools are even better known than we are, but I think we’re excellent in the model we follow. Let’s talk about CVPR. We are here in person for the first time in three years. Do you have a word for the community now that we’re back together? In the past two years, even though there’s been a great effort to hold virtual events, I think they’ve been challenging for the community. They don’t offer students the possibility to communicate their work and meet senior faculty. It’s fantastic to be back here because it allows us to get back together, talk, exchange ideas, and show our work in a much more involved manner than we did in the past couple of years. May we say to all those who stayed at home this year: please, next time, come over! It’s much more fun! 15 DAILY CVPR Thursday Mathieu Salzmann