How to Do AI Research
That Matters

Schedule

Opening (40 min)
9.00: Prof. Manuela Veloso / The History of AI Research & What It Means to Do Ambitious, Impactful Research

Core Sessions (2 × 25 min)

9.40: Prof. Stefano Albrecht / From Ideas to Experiments

 - Start with the problem, not the method

 - How to identify good research questions

 - Rigorous empirical evaluation

 - Reproducibility of results

 - Differences between research in academia and research in industry

Plus new book announcement!
Becoming an AI Researcher: Practical Advice for Graduate Students (Cambridge University Press)

10.05: Prof. Reuth Mirsky / From Experiments to Papers

 - Writing strong papers

 - Reporting empirical results

 - Using foundation models/LLMs in writing and research 

 - Learning from failures: when there's no paper to publish

 - How to make a lasting impact after a paper is accepted

10.30-11.00: Coffee break

Panel (45 min)

11.00: Invited panelists from academia, industry, and government discuss their views on impactful research and advice to PhD students.

Host: Prof. Matthew Taylor

Panel:
Prof. Ivor Tsang, A*STAR Singapore
Prof. Manuela Veloso, JPMorgan Chase & Carnegie Mellon University
Prof. Weinan Zhang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Dr. Chris Geib, Charles River Analytics
Prof. Sarit Kraus, Bar-Ilan University

Open Discussion (45 min)

11.45: Audience–driven Q&A and dialogue, informed by a pre-conference survey.

Networking