Grad School 101
This session will include information about graduate school from both the student and faculty perspective. It will address questions such as: What is grad school like? How is it different from undergrad? How do you pay for it? Is it for everyone? Masters vs. PhD--what do these degrees do for you? Do you need to put your life on hold when you are in grad school? What are some of the best things about grad school?
Panelists:
Katie Cunningham
Kathryn “Katie” Cunningham studies the way novices learn to program, and invents new methods for teaching computing.
Using human-centered computing methods in the context of computer science education, her research improves learners’ motivation and cognition while learning programming, with a long-term goal of broadening pathways to computing education.
Dr. Cunningham’s current focus is on understanding and supporting novice learners with diverse goals, and developing new software-supported scaffolding that allows learners to focus on code’s purpose.
Yongjoo Park
Yongjoo Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At UIUC, he is part of Data and Information Systems (DAIS) Research Lab. Also, Yongjoo is a co-founder and Chief Scientist of Keebo, Inc., a start-up company he co-founded based on his Ph.D. research. Yongjoo's research interest is in building intelligent data-intensive systems using statistical and Artificial Intelligence techniques. Yongjoo obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2017. His dissertation received the 2018 SIGMOD Jim Gray Dissertation runner-up award.
Deepak Vasisht
I am an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). I also hold affiliate appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Coordinated Sciences Laboratory at UIUC. I lead the rural connectivity thrust at the Center for Digital Agriculture.
My group's research focuses on designing the next generation of mobile computing and wireless networking systems such as satellite networks, in-body systems, and 6G. I am deeply interested in developing solutions for human-critical problems in various application domains such as rural connectivity, agriculture, and healthcare.
I am a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, two best paper awards, and the ACM SIGCOMM Doctoral Dissertation Award. Prior to UIUC, I graduated with a Ph.D. from MIT, advised by Prof. Dina Katabi. During my Ph.D. (and after), I worked at Microsoft Research on FarmBeats, which has been launched as a product used by farmers across the world. I received my undergraduate degree from IIT Delhi with the President of India gold medal. In 2021, I was named a graduate of the last decade by IIT Delhi.
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