Center for Computational Intractiblity

This popped into my mailbox, and I can't see any reason not to pass on the announcement here. Especially notice the bit at the end about postdocs (get your paperwork in NOW!!!).

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Dear Colleague:

I am writing to tell you about a new Center for Computational Intractability that is funded by the National Science Foundation and is a collaborative effort between Princeton University, Institute for Advanced Study, Rutgers University, and New York University. The PIs are Allender, Arora, Barak, Charikar, Chazelle, Impagliazzo, Khot, Naor, Saks, Szegedy,Wigderson, and Tarjan.

The Center's mission views "intractability" fairly broadly, and covers both algorithms and complexity theory as well as other topics in theoretical CS. I would like to draw your attention specifically to the following: (a) Visiting possibilities for short-to-medium term (up to 1 year). We can pay travel costs and salary. (b) Several workshops a year, with possibilities to visit the center at the same time. (We can pay expenses.) (c) Postdoctoral positions both at the center and at the affiliated institutions. (d) Streaming videos of all center activities and seminars and other web-based resources.

I invite you to visit our website http://intractability.princeton.edu/ and to especially click on "Opportunities" from the sidebar.

I was wondering if you could forward this email to others in your department (including students and postdocs) who may be interested in the center's activities. Please note that the deadline for postdoc applications is December 15, and the deadline for postdoc applications to IAS is December 1.

With best regards,

Sanjeev Arora
Director

The Job Market, Post Analysis

When I was in graduate school, the academic/research lab job market was pretty soft. By the time I graduated, it was a little better, but not great; you could see things heading upward, though. (Of course, I should point out here the caveat that generally the job market always seems a bit softer in theory than in anything else...)

So, looking back this last year, what is everyone's take on the job market this past year (and the trend for next year)? It seemed to me that while it's not in a completely disastrous state, it's not great, and it's been trending downward the last year or two. The effects of the economy and the long-term exodus of CS majors is not helping in academia, and while there's some availability in research labs, there doesn't seem to be a lot of spare capacity. Google is providing a much-needed outlet, as are (to a lesser extent) Yahoo Research and the new Microsoft Cambridge lab, but it's not clear (to me) how all three will play out long term, or even in the next few years. (If it weren't for sponsored search, I hesitate to think where the theory job market would be today. And if Yahoo ever does get bought out, what will happen to research...?)

There still seem to be jobs available for the best people (or, depending on your point of view, the people with the best buzz), and we still don't seem as saturated as I always hear physics and math are. But the market seems weak, and it's something students should be aware of.

I'd be happy to hear more informed opinions, or disagreeing opinions, or especially insights on the job market from non-theory people...

CS Family Values

One aspect of graduate school at Berkeley I recall quite clearly was the lack of children. Graduate students having children was and is generally quite rare, and I'm not sure that CS at Berkeley was much worse in that regard than anywhere else -- I'd be interested if readers have any pointers to stats on the issue, by field and/or by school. But it struck me even then that it seemed unusual for the faculty to have kids, particularly in the theory group.

I know there's the old advice -- still apparently prevalent in some circles -- not to have children until you get tenure. Though that advice seems less widespread these days, or perhaps just more young faculty are choosing to ignore it. (Or, perhaps, I'm just out of touch -- at Harvard, at least, the common case is for CS junior faculty to have kids.) [And apparently I may also be suffering sex bias; see this summary and this pointer to an NSF report, suggesting that the effect on tenure chances for men having children is small, but is much larger for women.]

Does having kids help or hurt one's work? I don't think there's a clear answer, that it probably depends on the individual (and that the effect, in any case, is probably overestimated). On the other hand, I think a career framework that pushes people to postpone or not have children is ultimately cutting off a substantial supply of raw talent, which can't be a good thing. If academia as a whole is moving away from that 20th (19th?) century mindset, I'm all in favor of it.

(An aside -- Chloe Elizabeth Mitzenmacher arrived last week, prompting some of these thoughts. Which, due to lack of sleep, might be even less coherent than average...)

Results of the Hiring Season

I've been eagerly awaiting my chance to talk about the results of this year's hiring season for Harvard Computer Science, but wanted to wait until it seemed all the i's were dotted and t's were crossed. I think we're at that stage.

Because of some losses in Computer Science (including Mike Smith and Barbara Grosz being made Deans, of the Faculty and of Radcliffe, respectively) we were really looking to hire this year. Indeed, I think in the end my most important role as chair of the search committee was to make sure that the right people knew that we really wanted to make a lot of offers, and build support for that. The search committee itself was so great that they made the rest of the job (screening, interviewing, and deciding on candidates) relatively easy. Well, OK, it was actually a lot of work. We had hundreds of folders to go through, we interviewed 14 candidates, and because the candidates were so strong, our decisions were challenging. But the committee itself ran smoothly, with everyone really putting in a lot of effort and working to come to agreement. That's one benefit of a smaller department -- we're very collegial about this stuff.

We ended up making six offers. Given the size of Harvard's computer science faculty, this is indeed a lot, and I'm proud of the fact we were able to make the case to our peers in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences that making this many offers was entirely appropriate. (We were helped, again, by the high quality of candidates.) In the end, we will have three new faculty members:

Yiling Chen works at the economics/computer science interface.
Stephen Chong works on information security and programming languages.
Krzysztof Gajos works on user interfaces and human-computer interaction.

We're all looking forward to their arrivals.

I, personally, feel very good about the outcome, and am pleased the search was successful. I'm of course disappointed that not everyone we made offers to decided to choose us, but I don't think any school manages 100% there. (Quite frankly, I'm sure the Dean would have been somewhat concerned with the logistics if all six had come, but that would have been a problem I'd have been happy to work through and live with.)

I expect Harvard computer science will be continuing to grow in coming years, so when you know of graduates looking for jobs, make sure Harvard is on their radar.

Knowing Harry Lewis Can Get You Hired

For that epsilon-fraction of the world that regularly reads my blog but not the complexity blog, here's a great post about the awe-inspiring power of just knowing Professor Harry Lewis. Check out the comments (I think Harry is teasing me again). And for anyone skeptical that Harvard is a high-powered CS institution, just check out Harry's list of his past Teaching Assistants (TFs, in Harvard-speak), and see how many names you recognize...

The Job Search, Another Perspective

I am chairing the search committee for Harvard this year, motivating me to comment on the view from the other side of the search process. Everything here should be taken as general commentary, my own opinion, not the opinion of my employer or this search committee, and not necessarily specific to our search, which of course I can't discuss in any detail. (The following comments are not theory-specific, though I use theory-examples.)

A general search begins with getting several hundred applications for a small number of interviews and an even smaller number of eventual offers. Candidate quality is quite high, to the point where it's very difficult to whittle the folders down to a number that can be reasonably considered for interviews. [I'm personally doubtful that there will be enough academic/research lab jobs available this year (in, say, North American academic institutions) for all the highly qualified candidates. All the good people will get a job, I'm sure -- perhaps just not in academia, or in research labs. We'll lose people to non-research industry. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would like to stay in research that won't be able to. Of course, even if you get an academic job, it's not clear these days there's enough research funding to go around for everyone, anyway...]

Candidates need to find a way to stand out. More precisely, their research record needs to stand out. Somehow, unfortunately, it's not even enough to have a number of papers in top-tier conferences. In theory, for example, there's a number of people with multiple FOCS/STOC/SODA papers. Let's hypothetically say there's a dozen candidates with 3 or more papers in top-tier conferences in an area. What will make you stand out as one of the top two or three that gets an interview?

Letter-writers confirming the quality of your research (and your contributions on multi-author papers) are one obvious answer, and this partially explains the often observed hiring bias in favor of students from top-tier institutions; they have top-tier letter-writers. It is, generally, helpful to come from a top-tier institution, but it's less clear that it matters which particular one. Research quantity is another way to stand out. Those rare extreme cases of people who manage to publish 20 or so papers in top conferences do get noticed, certainly.

Quality, however, matters much more than quantity. Are you working on exciting problems, that can have a significant impact in some way? Are you following the crowd, or getting ahead of it? In essence, the question is "What is candidate X famous for?" If there's a good answer to that question when you replace "candidate X" with your name, you're much more likely to get an interview. And the statement "Candidate X is famous for writing a lot of papers" isn't really sufficient in itself.

Finally, I think there are further intangibles that contribute to this notion of reputation that need to be thought about earlier on in graduate school that impact the hiring process. Giving good conference talks gets you and your work more notice, increasing the fame factor. Working with many people, including people from outside your home institution, increases the visibility of your work (and improves your collection of letters).

In the end, of course, all this advice seems obvious. Then again, being on the search committee and writing this up clarified it my mind, and will make me reflect on my own recent work practices.

The Job Search, One Perspective

Of course the most interesting part of the SODA conference (and generally all conferences) is the conversations one has out in the halls. At some point in talking to one of the many people job-hunting this year, my own employment history arose, and at the risk of self-indulgence I thought it might be instructional to repeat here.

When I was finishing graduate school, the job market wasn't great. Most people went into postdocs. Your Jon Kleinbergs and David Kargers got jobs, of course, but most top 36 schools weren't hiring theorists out of graduate school. I felt pretty fortunate; I had interned at Digital Systems Research Center (SRC -- which, sadly, is now before-many-people's time...), and it seemed reasonably likely I might be offered a job. I also applied for several postdocs just in case, and applied to a small number of universities. I avoided a wide search, figuring my chances were small, and that I'd rather do a postdoc than take a job somewhere I didn't really want to go.

I got a small number of faculty job interviews -- including an interview at Harvard. But, at the end of the day, no academic offers. I did, happily, get a job at SRC. I think from the perspective of many graduate students, this would be seen as a failure -- no faculty job! (In telling the story at SODA, the look in the student's eyes seemed to suggest that interpretation.) In hindsight, of course, it's easy to see that this was far and away the best possible thing for me. SRC was a great place to be, full of innovative people and a strong ethic of theory/systems collaboration, and I received the benefits of mentoring from many great researchers (particularly Andrei Broder), as well as time to develop my research abilities and profile.

I decided to throw my hat in the ring again two years later. Since I liked SRC, I again only applied a small number of places that I might conceivably leave SRC for. I got 3 interviews. And just one job offer, at Harvard, which had rejected me last time around.

I suppose in this rambling anecdote I'm hoping there are some messages job-seekers current and future might take away. Patience really is a virtue; you needn't get to where you're going immediately. (It seems many CS theory folks have had long, winding, and quite pleasant careers.) For many, it might be beneficial to have some time and experience before facing the pressures of the tenure clock. You should never take it personally if you don't get an interview or a job offer. Don't be afraid to fail. Summer internships are a very good thing. Research labs are a very good thing.

I'm sure many job-seekers, having gone from undergrad right to grad school, feel the pressure to get to right to the next step, a tenure-track position. It might not work out that way. But there are many paths to a happy career; I hope you don't get so tied up in the process that you stop enjoying what you're doing.

Preparing Students for Jobs

In a recent "discussion" on another blog, I repeatedly heard the refrain that we ivory-tower pie-in-the-sky university computer science professor types just aren't preparing students suitably for "real-world" employment. Personally, I think that's just BS. However, I realize I may have a fairly biased viewpoint. I teach at Harvard, and, if I may say so, our students are generally quite good and do well in the job market. Having spent some time in industry, and, if I may so so, being perhaps more interested than the average theorist about practical issues, I attempt to add "real-world" aspects to my classes, like programming assignments in my undergraduate theory course.

Now occasionally I catch students who admit to reading this blog. I mean all students, from whatever school, undergraduates and graduate students, not just students from my classes or Harvard students. I hope some of you are reading now. Because I'd like to ask you to enlighten me. (That means, for instance, I'll keep quiet on the comments.) Please tell me, in your experience, did your education prepare you for your life after in the real world. (For current students, you can comment on how you feel your education is preparing you.)

While I'd expect you to comment anonymously, I'd ask that you provide salient information where possible. (Harvard student or not, current undergraduate or long-time real-world person, CS or EE or other major, etc.) I'd also greatly enjoy hearing specific comments and criticism regarding my own classes, from any ex-students out there.

And in advance of some annoying anonymous commenter who might feel the need to say how out of touch I must be that I need to find out how students are doing by asking on my blog, please rest assured I have other sources of information (both personal and data-driven) on the subject, but this is, hopefully, an interesting opportunity for me and others to gain more insight.

Academic jobs this season?

I’ve already mentioned Harvard is doing a junior faculty search – although not specifically for a theorist. Any other faculty hiring announcements, either broad-based or theory specific? Or any new postdoc announcements worth repeating here?

Research labs vs. academia

A discussion over at Muthu's blog led to the following great question:

You have a talented graduate who has a faculty job offer and a research lab job offer. Modulo the specifics of the univ and the lab, where should they go?

I think it's a great question, in part because it points out fantastic biases in the system. Of course almost all professors will almost always favor the university position; after all, they chose academia, so there's an inherent bias toward that direction. In my experience, students also are biased toward academia. Almost all students who work for a Ph.D. go in from the beginning with the mindset that they're going to be a professor, and that can be hard to let go of.

But very few people in computer science (both in general, and theory in particular) go on to become professors. There just aren't that many professor jobs. Perhaps one of the first conversations advisors ought to have with students would start, "I'm sure you want to be a professor when you're done here. But just so we're clear, what would be your backup plan?"

Of course, research labs shouldn't be just a backup plan. They're different from academic positions in ways that can be very appealing to many people : no need to continually find funding, no teaching, no tenure pressure, and generally more emphasis on accomplishing things as a group rather than individually. There's no single right answer to the question of whether to go to the lab or the university; it should depend on the personality, life goals, and needs of the student.

And a final thought -- life goals can change, and one can change one's mind later. Many people switch from labs to academia or academia to labs. Some people -- as Muthu himself knows -- can make multiple such switches throughout their career.