Computer Vision News - February 2023

14 Women in Computer Vision Actually, I just gave a talk about this on Tuesday. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we have 140 amazing applicants virtually interviewing for positions in this doctoral program that I run. The advice that I gave them and that I would share with you is; first, the most important choice is who you work with. You are signing up to apprentice with a scientist to learn how to think like they think and work on what they work on. And to be open and meet several people as it's a matching process. It's not like getting admitted to a Bachelor's program or a Master's program where it's just on academic excellence. There has to be a synergy. You're finding your academic parent, and there will be hard times along the way. In PhD and in research, not everything works. We tell wonderful stories of everything that works. But behind every paper, every demonstration, there are many, many things that didn't work, that were frustrating, ideas we had that didn't function as we thought, problems, bugs in our code, wrong assumptions, confusion, and miscommunications. Research is a team sport, and there are things we can do to make it go smoother, but there will be difficult times. Always remember, what is your motivation? I find the researchers who succeed most are really curious and excited and love to learn, and are willing to read. You really need to understand every piece of the system that you're working on. The pieces in the system interact. This big dataset that you downloaded or are using or this code that you're borrowing, you put them together. The way you're plotting the data, the way you're telling the story, all of the things have to work together. You really need to understand each piece if you want to make progress. I think it was Max Planck who said “insightmust precede application . ” dynamics with lots of programming assignments. I alsowas runningmy research lab. And then, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to become a director here in my institute to move to Germany to have a new adventure. This job is almost solely about research and also about leadership, mentoring, running a doctoral program, and running my institute. But I don't teach classes here. I might get to a little bit in the future at the university, local university. Of course, I teach my group. I teach my team. But it's not as much a headline as it was. That is very surprising to me because I got my PhD because I wanted to teach. I did not realize at the time how much I would love research. Since you mentioned mentoring, I have to appeal to a third Katherine. Many young scholars are asking themselves nowwhich road is better for them. Maybe we can use your experience to tell them.