[Nets-seminars] faculty candidate talk: Keith Winstein (MIT CSAIL), 2 PM Wednesday 12 Mar

Brad Karp B.Karp at cs.ucl.ac.uk
Fri Mar 7 18:35:06 GMT 2014


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Greetings, everyone.

The Systems and Networks Research group is interviewing for a junior
faculty position this spring. We have a strong field of candidates who
will be visiting over the coming month.

I'll be writing in a separate email in a moment to announce the talk
by the first candidate, Keith Winstein of MIT CSAIL, which will be
next Wednesday, the 12th of March at 2 PM in MPEB 1.03.

But before I make the talk announcement, I'd like to *urge* all of us
from *every* research group (faculty members, postdocs, PhD students,
research staff, and anyone else interested in cutting-edge CS
research) to *please* make every effort to attend these faculty
candidate talks.

When we interview faculty candidates, they are evaluating us and our
department as much as we are evaluating them. One thing that
candidates especially evaluate us on is whether our department is an
intellectually vibrant place--are the people in UCL CS curious about
cutting-edge ideas in the field of computer science, and do they come
together to keep abreast of new developments in the field and discuss
them critically? In large part, candidates judge these things by
observing how well attended their talks are--not only by researchers
in their own area, but from *other* areas of CS. They also assess
whether we engage with their talk, and ask questions that demonstrate
the audience's interest and (constructive!) critical faculties.

We are all very busy, and are all focused on our own research
activities. But recruiting great new faculty members is one of the
most important things we do as a department--practically nothing else
so directly determines our shared future research trajectory
(recruiting great PhD students is of similar importance, of course).
And we can't recruit successfully unless we come together as a
department to impress candidates--everyone we are interviewing has
been granted interviews at several of the best competing institutions
in the world. Rest assured that the norm at our competitors is for the
department to turn out en masse for candidates' talks, and to engage
candidates vibrantly.

So please attend these faculty candidate talks over the coming weeks!
If the extreme importance of helping us make a good impression on your
potential future colleagues doesn't sway you, here are two other
incentives:

- - Your own enjoyment: all candidates are told to give talks that are
accessible to a *broad* computer science audience, and not only to
those in their own narrow area; even if you work in a different area,
you should find the talks stimulating and enjoyable

- - Make your voice heard: we welcome informal feedback on candidates
from colleagues who have attended the candidate's talk; please feel
free to email me or John Shawe-Taylor with any thoughts you would like
to share, and we will see to it that they are communicated to the panel

Thank you for helping the department recruit excellent new faculty
members!

Best,
- -Brad, bkarp at cs.ucl.ac.uk
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