PhD Forum

Please note that the call deadlines have passed. The final program is available on the program page!

The PhD Forum at the Networked Systems 2023 follows the tradition and format of similar events at international conferences such as ICNP, PerCom, UbiComp, and Pervasive. The aim is twofold. First, the forum aims to provide doctoral students in any phase of their career an opportunity to discuss their research with experts and gain feedback and advice. Second, the PhD Forum provides a friendly and supportive environment with excellent opportunity for young researchers to establish connections (leading to possible collaborations) with peers as well as with established experts.

What can I expect?

The PhD Forum is a dedicated half-day event of discussions and fun with your peers and NetSys community. Our goal is to clearly illustrate that doing a PhD is worth the journey, whether you want to continue in academia or industry. The journey might be cumbersome but also brings a lot of joy, and most importantly, you are not alone.

The PhD Forum will consist of three parts.

• A one-minute madness introduction per participant to get to know each other.
• Keynote speakers who will share their research journey from a PhD student to a leading expert.
• Q&A and roundtable discussion where you will have the opportunity to ask meta questions about, e.g., time management, publication strategy, collaborations, research marketing, or handling failures. We will collect your questions anonymously before the PhD Forum.

All PhD forum participants will present their research topic as a poster during the main NetSys conference.

What should I submit?

We welcome PhD students in any phase of their career. Prospective participants should prepare an application that includes the following information:

• Curriculum Vitae: a brief biological sketch describing affiliations and research interests of the PhD student. Please include the PhD start date and (expected) date for completing the dissertaion
• A motivation letter (1 page max.) that should discuss the following aspects:
  • Motivation: why do you want to attend the PhD Forum and what do you expect to gain from it? (1 paragraph)
  • Your research area and the specific problem that you would think to work on. (1 paragraph)

We will collect questions for the Q&A after notification of acceptance.

Submission should be done electronically as PDF via CMT.

Important Dates:

• Registration & submission: Friday, June 23rd, 2023
• Notification of acceptance: Friday, July 26th, 2023

PhD Forum Chairs

• Nitinder Mohan, TU Munich, Germany - mohan@in.tum.de
• Matthias Wählisch, TU Dresden, Germany - m.waehlisch@tu-dresden.de

Keynote Speakers

David Koll, Lead Data Scientist, Continental AG

Title: A Data-driven journey from Academia to Industry

Abstract

In this session we will follow the path of a young researcher. We start from the early beginnings of a completed Master's thesis and the first rejected paper drafts and then make our way to a finalized PhD thesis and a subsequent PostDoc engagement. We discuss reasons for the switch to a job in industry, show how a PhD helps to land the really cool jobs and compare the work life of both worlds.

Profile

David (Linkedin) holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Göttingen with research visits to the University of Oregon (USA), Uppsala University (Sweden), and Fudan University (China). His thesis focused at the intersection of computer networking and online social networks. After graduating, David was the technical project lead for EU FP7 Initial Training Network “CleanSky ITN” that trained 9 new PhDs and guided 3 PostDocs in the early stages of their academic career. Now, he is working as a Lead Data Scientist for one of the global AI accelerator teams at Continental AG. Since joining, he has developed different analytical solutions that are now running in production, with a focus on supply chain and Industry 4.0 topics.

Quirin Scheitle, Global Head of Network Services, The Adecco Group

Title: No one else to blame: The skill of full ownership taught during a PhD and how it will help your career

Abstract

Careers are winding roads which are hard to predict and hence hard to “prepare” for. I always chose my next steps based on my passion (“is it super interesting?"), my learning ambition (“will I learn new things?") and “will it help me in the future, whatever it will be?". In this talk I will explore my personal view on the enduring core skills learned during a PhD journey and how these will help your next steps — whether they will be in research, technology, or management!

Profile

Quirin (Linkedin) currently works for The Adecco Group and is reponsible for overseeing network and network security services. Listed below are the choronological milestones of his academic and professional career.

• 2007-2012: MSc TUM, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focus Internet Security
• 2012-2015: McKinsey & Co, Consultant focusing IT Infra/Security
• 2015-2018: PhD studies, TUM, University of Sydney, focus Internet Security (“Large-Scale Measurements of Internet Security & Privacy”)
• 2018-2022: McKinsey & Co, Project Manager, focusing IT Infra/Security/M&A
• since 2022: The Adecco Group, Global Head of Network Services, group wide accountable for Network & Network Security Services