Undergrad Architecture Mentoring (uArch) Workshop
New York City, USA, Full-Day Workshop
June 18, 2022 in conjunction with ISCA 2022
Updates:
June 24th: Thanks so much to everyone participating in uArch -- and a huge thank you to our insightful speakers and panelists!
A great big thank you to all of our "office hours" mentors: Trevor E. Carlson, Mark Jeffrey, Akshitha Sriraman, Mengjia Yan, Jongse Park, Hadi Esmielzadeh, Lisa Wu, Timothy Pinkston, Dean Tullsen, Brandon Reagan, Josh San Miguel, Prashant Nair, Tony Nowatzki, Yipeng Huang, Per Stenström (if we missed someone who joined in spontaneously, please let us know!)
And a huge thank you to all of our virtual mentors: Mohammad Shahrad, Antonio Gonzalez, Dan Sorin, Rajiv Gupta, Ashish Venkat, Daniel Wong, Jian Huang, Karu Sankaralingam, Hyeran Jeon, Alaa Alameldeen, Rakesh Kumar, Jishen Zhao, Zhenman Fang, Christina Delimitrou, Arkaprava Basu, Matt Sinclair, Hung-Wei Tseng, Dmitry Ponomarev, José F. Martínez, Mohammad Alian, Calvin Lin, Lizhong Chen, Satish Narayanasamy, John (Jack) Sampson, Xun (Steve) Jian, Simha Sethumadhavan
We greatly appreciate the community's continued overwhelming support! This group effort plus the transition to a hybrid workshop let us involve over 100 students. You all have our sincere gratitude!
June 14: The workshop program has been updated.
May 31: The tentative workshop program has been posted.
April 25: Thanks to all who applied! Funding decision notifications have been sent out. Reminder that all our welcome to attend regardless of funding.
Program
The workshop program for Saturday June 18, 2022 is as follows (all times are in EDT):
8:30 am - 8:45 am Welcome
8:45 am - 9:30 am Keynote 1
Speaker: Samira Khan, University of Virginia
Title: How to be a Dragon in the New Era of Computer Architecture
Abstract: In this current data-centric era, data generated by social media, video sharing applications, swarms of sensors, and autonomous cars is growing exponentially. Unfortunately, as the technology scaling slows down, the semiconductor industry has been facing a major challenge in providing better performance while processing such large datasets. As a result, we need to innovate how we design our systems to sustain the demand for computing over exponentially growing datasets. In this talk, I will discuss the current trends, opportunities, and challenges in the post-Moore era of computer architecture and provide my insights on how students can effectively forge the path to become the one who leads these research directions.
Bio: Samira Khan is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department in the University of Virginia (UVa). Her research group at UVa -- Shiftlab, is motivated to introduce a paradigm shift by redesigning and building the software-hardware stack for our future systems. Her group puts a significant effort in building new tools, artifacts, and frameworks for emerging technologies. Currently, she is on leave at the newly formed group, Systems Research at Google (SRG), leading the system-on-chip (SoC) expedition to solve the fundamental software-hardware design challenges at scale. She hosts “Happy Hour with Architects”, where prominent people from academia and industry discuss and debate research trends and directions in computer architecture and systems.
9:30 am - 10:30 am Panel: Life in Grad School
Abhishek Bhattacharyya
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Alen Sabu
National University of Singapore
Ameer Abdelhadi
University of Toronto
Lillian Pentecost
Harvard University
Poulami Das
Georgia Institute of Technology
Sunho Lee
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
10:30 am - 11:00 am Break
11:00 am - 12:00 pm Panel: Life after Grad School
Divya Mahajan
Microsoft
Jongse Park
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Yasuko Eckert
AMD Research
Yipeng Huang
Rutgers University
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm - 2:45 pm Panel: Applying to Grad School
Djordje Jevdjic
National University of Singapore
Mark Jeffrey
University of Toronto
Mengjia Yan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Per Stenström
Chalmers University of Technology
2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Break
3:00 pm - 3:40 pm Keynote 2
Speaker: Prashant Nair, University of British Columbia
Title: Research in Academia and Industry!
Abstract: In this talk, I will go over how academic research can influence industry designs and talk about best practices. The talk will also discuss how novelty and creativity are perceived and their importance for research publications. The talk will go over a few examples of how some designs have translated into industry products. This talk will also try to differentiate the goals (broadly) of academic research and contrast them with industry research.
Bio: Prashant Nair is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He also holds an Affiliate Fellow position at the Quantum Algorithms Institute. His primary interests are in Computer Architecture, AI/ML Systems, Quantum Systems, Memory Systems, Reliability, and Security. He frequently publishes in top-tier venues such as ISCA, MICRO, HPCA, ASPLOS, DSN, and VLDB, with two of those papers being awarded honorable mentions in IEEE MICRO Top-Picks. Before joining UBC, he investigated practical data compression for IBM systems at T. J. Watson Research Center in New York. His Ph.D. work on integrating On-Die ECC and Host ECC (XED @ ISCA-2016) has been successfully integrated into the HBM3 Memory Protocol by JEDEC. He was also awarded the ECE Graduate Research Assistant Excellence Award for his Ph.D. at Georgia Tech.
3:45 pm - 5:15 pm Office Hours
Mission
The Undergraduate Architecture Mentoring (uArch) Workshop is designed to introduce undergraduate and early Master's students to research and career opportunities in the field of computer architecture in particular and graduate school lifestyle and survival skills in general. The program will include technical sessions that cover past, current and future research directions in computer architecture, mentoring sessions that cover how to apply to graduate school and how to navigate the architecture research landscape effectively, and networking sessions that create opportunities for students to interact with their peers and established architects in academia and industry.
Mechanics
The central theme of this workshop is to attract students who are interested in graduate school in computer architecture. To this end, uArch will likely include:
The Route to Graduate School: Students will learn how to apply to graduate school, how to find their research interests, how to talk with a potential advisor, etc.
Life at Graduate School: The workshop will include keynote talks from academic and industry leaders about how to thrive at graduate school.
Computer Architecture Research Landscape: The workshop will include technical sessions covering history, current state-of-the-art research and challenging problems that are left unsolved.
Meet an "Architect in Process": As part of the workshop, attendees will be paired with students who are pursuing a Ph.D. degree in computer architecture to hear their first-hand experience about research and life at graduate school and build a mentor-mentee relationship.
Ask an Architect: The workshop will include a panel of established architects in the industry and academia from whom students can seek career advice.
Mentors
Many faculty mentors will be participating! Last year, selected applicants met with professors from:
Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, College of William and Mary, Cornell University, Duke University, EPFL, Google Brain, IISc Bangalore, KAIST, KMUTNB, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, Northeastern University, Ohio State University, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Rochester, Seoul National University, Simon Fraser University, U. Minnesota, UCSC, Univ. of California - Merced, Univ. of California - Riverside, Univ. of California - San Diego, Univ. of California - Santa Barbara, Univ. of California - Santa Cruz, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of British Columbia, University of Edinburgh, University of Murcia, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, University of Toronto, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Uppsala University, Virginia Tech, Yale University
Applications
This workshop targets undergrads, who typically do not have advisors or departmental support to attend conferences. Early Master's students are also eligible to apply, as well as recent graduates who are currently in industry but are planning to apply to graduate school. Given the virtual format of the conference, funding this year will cover the conference/workshop registration.
All undergraduate and Master's students are invited to apply, but priority will be given to students who will finish their undergraduate degree in 2023 or 2024. Applicants will be reviewed by a panel, with factors influencing the decision including year in school, statement of interest, and membership in underrepresented groups in computer architecture (e.g., gender, race, ability, LGBTQ status).
We will fund as many students as possible. Note that funding may not be available for students from U.S.-sanctioned countries, but all students are welcome to attend.
Application Form: To apply to the workshop, fill out the form here: https://forms.gle/uzDeBijE7GGvZk2q7.
Endorsement Form: To endorse a student for the workshop, fill out the form here: https://forms.gle/h5NhWzy1tDfTbgp76.
Note for women undergraduate and graduate students for additional funding: ACM-W provides support for women undergraduate and graduate students in Computer Science and related programs to attend research conferences. The application deadline is April 15 for conferences taking place in June—July 2022. For more information and to apply visit here.
Important Dates
Application Deadline:
March 11, 2022
(Extended) March 31, 2022
Notification:
April 15, 2022
(Updated) April 18, 2022
Workshop Date:
June 12, 2022
(Updated) June 18, 2022
Organizing Committee
Newsha Ardalani, Facebook AI Research
R. Iris Bahar, Colorado School of Mines
Divya Mahajan, Microsoft
Abdulrahman Mahmoud, Harvard University
Srilatha (Bobbie) Manne, Facebook
Tony Nowatzki, University of California, Los Angeles
Lena Olson, Google
Lillian Pentecost, Harvard University
Joshua San Miguel, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Irene Wang, University of British Columbia
Common Questions
Who can apply? Because the workshop is partly focused on informing students about graduate studies in computer architecture and in applying to grad school, we expect that the students who will benefit most from it will be in their second to last year of undergraduate studies. However, the workshop is open to all interested attendees.
Can I attend without funding? The workshop is open to everyone. If you have an alternate funding source, we encourage you to directly register for the workshop when the conference registration opens. However, only selected applicants will be scheduled for "office hours" meetings with professors.
Advice for attending the first conference? Our answers to some frequently asked questions.
How can we sponsor uArch? Please contact us at uarchworkshop@gmail.com.
Sponsors
