BSOE Graduate Student Newsletter
Announcements
TA Needed for CSE 112 (Fall 2020)
We are in need of a Teaching Assistant for the following course for Fall Quarter 2020:
Class Description: Covers several programming languages and compares styles, philosophy, and design principles. Principles underlying declarative, functional, and object-oriented programming styles are studied. Students write programs emphasizing each of these techniques. (Formerly Computer Science 112.)
1. Full-time graduate student enrollment (minimum 10 units).
2. Unfunded, has not been offered or accepted another TA, TF, or Assoc-In, or GSR position already for the same quarter.
3. Does not have other employment that would require exception for >50% employment.
4. For international students: at least the minimum demonstration of English fluency use to determine eligibility for TAships: a) 89 overall and 26 SPKGI for the internet-based TOEFL, or 8 overall for IELTS; b) the Versant exam, if required; c) participation in the Grad Prep Program or LAAD 210, if required; or d) waiver on file for exemption from language exam. Unfortunately, if you do not meet the minimum requirement, we are unable to consider your application.
STEM Solutions in Public Policy Award
UC Center Sacramento is pleased to announce the STEM Solutions in Public Policy Award.
This award will recognize one or more outstanding proposals for new California legislation from UC STEM graduate students. The winner(s) will receive $1,000 for research support and -- should their bill advance through the legislative process –travel expenses covering a trip to Sacramento to convene with Legislators and/or legislative staff.
Submissions will be accepted until midnight Pacific time on October 23rd, 2020 and applicants will be notified of their status in March 2021. Further information is available at UCCS STEM Solutions or on the UCCS website (uccs.ucdavis.edu).
*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.
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)
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