BSOE Graduate Student Newsletter
Announcements
Google PhD Fellowship
Please see the Google PhD Fellowship call for nominations (opening Sept. 1). Our internal deadline will be SEPTEMBER 15 to allow time for review.
The fellowship includes:
- Up to 3 year Fellowship
- Full tuition and fees (enrollment fees, health insurance, books) plus a stipend to be used for living expenses, travel and personal equipment
- Google Research Mentor
The fellowship is for the following CS and related areas:
- Algorithms, Optimizations and Markets
- Computational Neuroscience
- Health Research
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Machine Learning
- Machine Perception, Speech Technology and Computer Vision
- Mobile Computing
- Natural Language Processing (including Information Retrieval and Extraction)
- Privacy and Security
- Programming Languages and Software Engineering
- Quantum Computing
- Structured Data and Database Management
- Systems and Networking
Our school can submit up to 4 nominations, but 2 "must self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or person with a disability". Please specify if the applicant is from one of the self-identifying groups.
For each student nomination, the university will be asked to submit the following material in a single PDF file and we would like this for review of our applicants.
- Cover sheet signed by the Department Chair confirming the student passes eligibility requirements. (See FAQ "What are the eligibility requirements for students?")
- Student CV with links to website and publications (if available)
- Short (1-page) CV of the student's primary advisor
- 2-3 letters of recommendation from those familiar with the nominee's work (at least one from the thesis advisor)
- Research / dissertation proposal including references (maximum 8 pages)
- Student essay response (350-word limit) to: Describe the desired impact your research will make on the field and society, and why this is important to you. Include any personal, educational and/or professional experiences that have motivated your research interests.
- Student essay response (350-word limit) to: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time. (A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities? Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?)
- Transcripts of current and previous academic records
Please also include separately in the email a brief abstract (< 1000 words) summarizing the student's research.
Please contact your department's graduate program director or department chair if you are interested in being nominated.
Each department can submit up to 3 nominations for our review.
eBay's Machine Learning Competition for Students
For the second year, eBay is running a ML Challenge. The prize of the competition is an internship at eBay for the winning student or team.
The announcement attached describes the competition in more detail, but in a nutshell:
The question we invite you to address is how to identify two or more listings as being for the same product by putting them into the same group. We call this Purchase Level Equivalency (PLE). That is, if a buyer purchased two items from two different listings in a single group, they would assess that they had obtained two instances of the same product.
The competition started August 24. It is being hosted on EvalAI.
Please feel free to ask any questions. We have set up a mailbox dedicated to this competition at MLChallenge@ebay.com.
CALL FOR PROPOSAL: HUMAN RIGHTS BY DESIGN FELLOWSHIP
https://citrispolicylab.org/hrbdfellowship/
Taraaz and the CITRIS Policy Lab are pleased to announce the launch of the Human Rights by Design Fellowship Program. Two $1000 fellowships will be provided to University of California graduate students (currently enrolled in Master’s, Ph.D., or J.D. programs at a campus in the University of California system) to carry out projects at the intersection of technology and human rights. During the fellowship program, fellows will work on an original project of their choice and receive feedback and support from the directors of the fellowship program. They will present their completed projects at a virtual event organized by Taraaz and the CITRIS Policy Lab.
Background
Technologies are not neutral. Values, principles, and standards are always built into technological systems. From the first stages of ideation to the last stages of testing and deployment, decisions are made by executives, policymakers, designers, and developers that create both positive and negative effects of technology on society. We believe that human rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should guide decision-making in the design and development of technologies. Therefore, we invite applicants to seek answers to the following question: How can we use the human rights framework as guiding principles in the design and development of technologies?
We welcome proposals that highlight the applicant’s strong commitment to the importance of ethical design in the development of technologies. Other criteria include the clarity and importance of the proposed research project; its concreteness and practicality; and its potential for being applied in industry-wide practices and/or STEM education. The deliverable of the research project may be in several formats, including but not limited to: a white paper, toolkit, video/audio materials, or a series of blog posts.
Eligibility
The fellowship is open to graduate students (from Master’s, Ph.D. or J.D. programs) at any University of California campus with an interest in exploring technology and human rights issues and experience in adjacent fields such as:
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- Human Computer Interaction (HCI) focusing on Human-Centered Design, Value Sensitive Design, Participatory Design.
- Computer and Information Science
- Technology Law and Policy
- Science and Technology Studies
- Ethical Design and Development of Artificial Intelligence systems
Application Requirements
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- A one-page project proposal addressing the following:
- The proposed nature of the project and its anticipated impacts. This should include mention of your project’s deliverable(s).
- How your project contributes to the development of the concept of human rights by design.
- Proposed methodology to carry out the project (successful applicants will work with the fellowship’s directors to build out the methodology further).
- An up-to-date Curriculum Vitae (CV).
- Two work samples: one to highlight your academic research, and another to show your ability to translate your academic research into a more public-facing output.
- A one-page project proposal addressing the following:
Finalists will be contacted to set up an interview and present their proposal (10 to 15 minutes) to the selection committee followed by a Q&A (20 to 30 minutes.)
Please send you application documents to rpakzad@taraazresearch.org and nonnecke@berkeley.edu with a subject line: [Applicant Name] Human Rights By Design Fellowship.
Fellowship Timeline
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- Call for proposal deadline: September 30th, 2020
- Notification to finalists to set up an interview: October 15th
- Final decision made by: November 10th
- Fellowship duration: January 1st, 2021 until July 1st, 2021
- End of fellowship event: Mid-July 2021
About Us
Taraaz is a research and advocacy organization working at the intersection of Technology and Human Rights. We research human rights implications of digital technologies and turn our human rights-based research into practical tools, guidelines, and policy proposals to better inform technologists and other public and private entities in the design, development, and deployment of digital products and services.
The CITRIS Policy Lab supports interdisciplinary research, education, and thought leadership to address core questions regarding the role of formal and informal regulation in promoting innovation and amplifying its positive effects on society. The CITRIS Policy Lab is housed within CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, a four-campus institute operating on the campuses of UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced, and UC Santa Cruz. With over 400 faculty affiliates, CITRIS is an internationally recognized leader in research and development of information technology to address society’s most pressing challenges.
Relevant Work
The following resources may be helpful for applicants:
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- Aizenberg, E., & Hoven, J. V. (2020). Designing for human rights in AI. Big Data & Society, 7(2), 205395172094956. doi:10.1177/2053951720949566. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720949566#articleCitationDownloadContainer
- Chung, A., Jen, D., McNealy, J. and Nguyen, S., 2020. From Legislation To Implementation: Exploring How To Prototype Privacy Bills Through. https://medium.com/mit-media-lab/from-legislation-to-implementation-exploring-how-to-prototype-privacy-bills-through-human-centered-4336af75f960
- Costanza-Chock, Sasha. Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. MIT Press, 2020. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/design-justice
- Friedman, Batya, and David G. Hendry. Value sensitive design: Shaping technology with moral imagination. MIT Press, 2019. https://www.vsdesign.org/
- “Guiding Principles on Businesses and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework.” 2011. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf
- Participatory Approaches to Machine Learning ICML 2020 Workshop: https://participatoryml.github.io/
- Yeung, Karen, Andrew Howes, and Ganna Pogrebna. “AI Governance by Human Rights-Centred Design, Deliberation and Oversight: An End to Ethics Washing.” The Oxford Handbook of AI Ethics, Oxford University Press, 2019. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190067397.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190067397-e-5
Call for GSI Applications for STAT 266C (Spring 2021) -- Due 9/13
Reminder that we are seeking applications to GSI for STAT 266C this Spring 2021.
CROSS Call for Proposals
The Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS) is seeking proposals for new research projects to be reviewed at the Fall 2020 CROSS Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) meeting.
Proposals are due on September 14. If your proposal is shortlisted, you will be invited to make a 10-15 minute presentation to the CROSS IAB and Advisory Committee on October 5.
The full Call for Proposals is available on the CROSS website at https://cross.ucsc.edu/projects/projectproposal.html and gives more details about how to apply, the criteria for selection, and a list of suggested topics.
UCSC faculty and PhD students who will have completed their class work by the end of Fall 2020 are encouraged to propose research projects. Funding for selected research projects cover the costs for one graduate student researcher (GSR) position. Research projects should raise a fundamental research question and open a plausible path to open source software that would be widely adopted.Recent PhD graduates from any university are welcome to propose incubator projects. Selected incubator projects fund one post-doc position. The proposal should show strong evidence that the open-source software project would meet with great interest by at least one well-established open-source software community.
Contact Stephanie Lieggi (slieggi@ucsc.edu) if you have any questions about this Call or the submission process.
*PLEASE NOTE THE UPCOMING UNIVERSITY DEADLINES*
Please note the following upcoming university deadlines, and ALWAYS check the Academic and Administrative Calendar for important dates and deadlines. Bookmark this year's Academic and Administrative Calendar and refer to it regularly.
Friday, October 9th Graduate Student Enrollment & Fee Payment
If you have not paid your registration fees or enrolled in the minimum number of courses by this date, you will be charged a $50 late fee. Please keep in mind that pending aid (Fellowship, GSR, TA) will not credit your account until you are enrolled in at least 5 units.
Friday, October 9th Graduate Student Part-Time Status
This is the deadline to apply for reduced course load and fees. Part-time status forms must be approved/signed by your faculty advisor and submitted to the BSOE Graduate Advising office by the posted deadline. Part-time application forms are available on the Graduate Division's website.
Thursday, October 15th Deadline To Apply For Degree
If you plan to complete your MS or PhD this quarter (Fall 2020), the degree application needs to be submitted to BSOE Graduate Advising office. This is also the deadline to pay for filing fee, if applicable. More guidelines for graduating are available on the Graduate Advising website.
Wednesday, October 21st Deadline to Add/Drop/Swap Courses
This is your last day to add, drop and swap courses. You will not be able to drop or withdraw from courses after this deadline has passed. If you are enrolled in a placeholder class, you MUST drop it by this deadline. More information on how to add, drop, and swap classes is available on the registrar website.
Wednesday, October 21st Grade Option
This is your last day to change your grading option for any courses you are enrolled in.
IMPORTANT: The system defaults to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading. Instructions for how to change your grading option to letter grades (ABC) can be found here.
Thursday, November 12th Late Add with Fee Deadline
The Add by Petition form requires the signatures of both the instructor and the department adviser and needs to be submitted to the Office of the Registrar.
Congratulations to the Campus Fellow Award (CFA) 2020-21 Cohort from SOE!
Michael Powell - Computer Engineering (Equitable Healthcare with Immersive Virtual Reality Telehealth to Improve
Physical and Mental Health during Times of Social Isolation)
Leya Breanna Baltaxe-Admony - Computational Media (Centralized Basic Needs Web App)
Global and Community Health Wellbeing Awards
The UCSC Division of Social Sciences Global and Community Health (GCH) Wellbeing Awards program enables undergraduate and graduate students to complete a research project that addresses Global and Community Health in collaboration with a community organization. The program is offered through the Institute for Social Transformation, who supports and facilitates the wellbeing awards.
Global and Community Health constitutes an urgent area of research, study, and practice. Our interdisciplinary program prioritizes the improvement of health and well-being in communities worldwide. Building upon collaborations across departments, divisions and the community here in Santa Cruz, we seek to address forces affecting health outcomes that range from the molecular, ecological and genomic to the global, political and economic. Ultimately our goal is to support the sustainability of communities and climates for health both locally and globally, doing so in ways that cultivate a new generation of global and community health leaders.
Please, direct questions to Nancy Chen nchen@ucsc.edu or the Institute for Social Transformation at transform@ucsc.edu.
Please visit this website for more information.
Deadline is October 30, 2020
Up to 10 awards of up to $1,000 each will be awarded.
Application:
Eligibility: Funding is offered to highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled through Spring 2021 and in good standing at UC Santa Cruz. Funded students must participate in a public or virtual event highlighting their work. We encourage all students at UCSC to apply, but undergraduates in the Social Sciences will be prioritized. During COVID-19 restrictions all research projects will need to be conducted in a manner that is safe and consistent with current guidelines.
Award: Student awards are limited to a maximum of $1,000 for community-based research during the academic year 2020-21. If students are applying for a group project, the award will be shared amongst the group members. The award is paid as a fellowship to help cover expenses such as: mileage, food, research supplies, data collection, equipment, software, hardware, survey incentives, etc.
Information Workshop: An information session will be offered on Wednesday, October 14, 12-1 PM.
Designated Emphasis in Data Science applications due Sept. 20
The Designated Emphasis in Data Science is accepting applications from eligible Ph.D. students starting this quarter (fall 2020).
More information about the program is available here:
https://grad.soe.ucsc.edu/designated_emphases#ds
Please forward this announcement to interested Ph.D. students, as well as your graduate program directors and managers for wider dissemination.
PLEASE NOTE that interested applicants should use the Application Form linked below to apply, as well as the DS DE Faculty Advisor Form linked below (and not the form on the SOE page, which is obsolete and will be updated soon):
Application form (google form): https://bit.ly/dsde-application
DS DE Faculty Advisor Form (pdf): https://bit.ly/dsde2020
As the two forms above explicitly highlight, prospective students will be expected to demonstrate knowledge of univariate calculus, linear algebra, basic programming, and introductory statistics. At the discretion of the DE executive committee, students who do not satisfy these basic requirements might be asked to take appropriate courses, either on campus or from online platforms, before being accepted into the DE DS. In addition, Ph.D. students applying to the program must identify one program faculty sponsor who has accepted to serve in their qualifying exam and dissertation committees. To encourage interdisciplinarity, the faculty sponsor must not be a member of the department hosting their main graduate degree.
Students admitted into the program will receive priority for enrollment in the courses required to complete it, many of which are currently oversubscribed. During the first three years, we will limit admissions to no more than 20 students each year, which is in line with the resources committed to the program at this time. If we receive more than 20 qualified applications in a single year, the Executive Committee will attempt to select a class that is representative of the diversity of disciplines in the applicant pool.
While the 2 forms linked above are open throughout the year, the Executive committee will review applications only once per quarter during this first year, and possibly only once a year in future years. If an application is rejected, the student will have to reapply to be reconsidered for admission to the DS DE.
THE CURRENT DEADLINE for the first round of applications is Sunday, Sept. 20, 2020, 11:59 pm.
Thank you for disseminating this information, and we’re looking very much forward to reviewing applications from your students.
-The DS DE Executive Committee (Adrian Brasoveanu, Narges Norouzi, Robert Lund)