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Becoming a Computer Science Researcher: Practical Strategies for Taming the Angst and Changing the World
Jeanna N. Matthews, Clarkson University
For beginning researchers, identifying their research topic can be a daunting and intimidating task. (You mean I need to find the right question and then answer it too?) This talk is part pep talk and part highly practical advice for beginning computer science researchers. I will discuss key aspects of the research process from finding a research topic, to mastering the related work, to keeping up with the onslaught of new research published each year. Some key lessons include how to extract essential research and career advice from a remote mentor of your choice—even if you never have an opportunity to meet them! , how to identify great papers that you can emulate and extend, how to read all (yes all) the papers in your field by reading at varying levels of depth and how to identify insightful criticisms that lead to truly new research directions.
Dr. Jeanna N. Matthews is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Clarkson University (Potsdam, New York). At Clarkson, she leads several hands-on computing laboratories including the Clarkson Open Source Institute and Clarkson Internet Teaching Laboratory. Students in these labs and in her classes at Clarkson and Cornell have been winners in a number of prestigious computing contests including the 2001, 2002, and 2004 IBM Linux Challenge, the 2005 IBM North American Grid Scholar’s Challenge, the 2005 Unisys Tuxmaster competition, and the 2006 VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge.
She has written several popular books including “Running Xen: A Hands-On Guide to the Art of Virtualization” and “Computer Networking: Internet Protocols in Action”. Her research interests include virtualization, cloud computing, computer security, computer networks and operating systems.
She is currently the chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Operating Systems (SIGOPS), the editor of ACM Operating System Review and a member of the Executive Committee of US-ACM, the U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM.
She has worked actively on industrial projects with companies including VMware, Intel, IBM, AMD, HP and Greenplum/EMC.
Jeanna received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999 and her B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Ohio State University in 1994.
Jeanna N. Matthews, Clarkson University
Dr. Jeanna N. Matthews is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Clarkson University (Potsdam, New York). At Clarkson, she leads several hands-on computing laboratories including the Clarkson Open Source Institute and Clarkson Internet Teaching Laboratory. Students in these labs and in her classes at Clarkson and Cornell have been winners in a number of prestigious computing contests including the 2001, 2002, and 2004 IBM Linux Challenge, the 2005 IBM North American Grid Scholar’s Challenge, the 2005 Unisys Tuxmaster competition, and the 2006 VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge.
She has written several popular books including “Running Xen: A Hands-On Guide to the Art of Virtualization” and “Computer Networking: Internet Protocols in Action”. Her research interests include virtualization, cloud computing, computer security, computer networks and operating systems.
She is currently the chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Operating Systems (SIGOPS), the editor of ACM Operating System Review and a member of the Executive Committee of US-ACM, the U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM.
She has worked actively on industrial projects with companies including VMware, Intel, IBM, AMD, HP and Greenplum/EMC.
Jeanna received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999 and her B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Ohio State University in 1994.
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author = {Jeanna N. Matthews},
title = {Becoming a Computer Science Researcher: Practical Strategies for Taming the Angst and Changing the World},
year = {2014},
address = {Philadelphia, PA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}
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