Take a step back, and ask yourself: What are the largest societal problems that relate to cybersecurity, today? Depending on your background, you may come with very different answers. Computer security researchers may come up with technical answers relating to formally verifiable code or homomorphic encryption or the structure of the internet. Tech-savvy policy makers […]
Tag: Research
The Art of Rebutting
This is a post on how to rebut reviews. Specifically, CHI reviews. The ideas presented here probably apply to rebuttals more broadly, but much of what I’m going to speak about in this post is specific to CHI. Okay, so the long, long — so long — wait is over and you have your CHI […]
Lesson Learned From Proposing My Thesis: Presenting
You’ve got your committee and you’ve scheduled a date. You’ve got your document written. Now, you need to present and defend your thesis proposal. In many ways, the presentation is the most frightening part of the process. Your committee will ask tough questions now so that they don’t have to at your defense. Those tough […]
Lessons Learned From Proposing My Thesis: Writing
Once you’ve got your committee sorted, it’s time to get to work. You’ll need to write up a document and then present it to your committee. But, you already know that. Really, the first step is to discuss your plans with your committee. I’m going to assume you’ve done that already because I’m probably not […]
5 Ph.D. Survival Tips
I recently had to give a short presentation on “survival tips” as a Ph.D. student [1]. I thought I’d summarize that presentation in written form, too. Now, there’s a lot of material out there on how to succeed as an academic and as a professional. This post is going to be a rehashing of those […]
A Guide to Fellowships for Computer Science Ph.D. Students, Part 2
Applying for graduate fellowships is a great use of your time as a computer science Ph.D. student, even if you do not have a strict financial need. Here are a few reasons why. Note that this post is the second of a two-part guide on graduate fellowships for computer science Ph.D. students. In a previous […]
A Guide to Fellowships for Computer Science Ph.D. Students, pt. 1
As a Ph.D. student, your job is multi-faceted. At any given time, your time is divided between: classroom study, Research [1], writing, “networking”, teaching, applying for fellowships, curating your online identity / promoting your online presence, reviewing papers, serving on committees, and wondering why you can’t do any Research. There are probably a few other […]
NSA’s Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition, Part 2
One of my papers was recently recognized as an honorable mention for the NSA’s Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Award. As an honorable mention author, I was given the opportunity to present my work to an audience of NSA security researchers. In a previous post, I briefly described the award and my paper that got the […]
A Letter to My Younger Self About Dealing with Rejection in Academia
Hi, younger me. You don’t know this yet, but the path you’ve chosen is one of brutal, unrelenting rejection. You’ve coasted through everything you’ve done in life so far. But you’ve met your match in academia. Everyone here is just as smart, if not smarter. They’re just as hard working, if not more so. Hence […]
NSA’s Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition, pt. 1
I just returned from the NSA, where I gave an invited talk and received an honorable mention for their annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper competition. If I had to summarize: it was a humbling and educational experience. I’m happy to have participated, and am smarter for it. I thought I’d recap my experience for those […]