The SPLASH 2020 Programming Languages Mentoring Workshop encourages graduate students (PhD and MSc) and senior undergraduate students to pursue research in programming languages. This workshop will provide mentoring sessions on how to prepare for and thrive in graduate school and in a research career, focusing both on cutting-edge research topics and practical advice. The workshop brings together leading researchers and junior students in an inclusive environment in order to help welcome newcomers to our field of programming languages research. The workshop will show students the many paths that they might take to enter and contribute to our research community.

PLMW’s core mission is to foster the development of the next generation of researchers in our community. In past years, PLMW has been organized as a one-day (in-person) workshop with invited talks on research topics and practical advice, with ad-hoc mentoring taking place throughout the day, especially during breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee breaks. Since the workshop will be occurring virtually this year, we have designed the program to focus more on small-group discussion and mentoring than on presentations. PLMW@SPLASH will consist of a mix of small-group mentoring sessions, where students can chat with mentors in small groups (organized by topics) and large-group “ask-me-anything” sessions. Topics covered will include:

• How to network effectively at a conference? How to find your cohort? How to find a mentor and what to look for?
• What communication skills are essential for a research career? To give a good presentation? A good poster session talk? To write an outstanding paper?
• How do people pick their research area of interest or your advisor/mentor?
• What are the new, emerging areas in PL/SE?
• What are the differences between a research career in industry and in academia?
• What are the important work/life issues researchers deal with?
• How did PL/SE researchers successfully navigate their training experiences?

The workshop will take place over two days, on Sunday November 15th, with a schedule that targets students in the Western Hemisphere timezones, and again on Monday November 16th, with a schedule that targets students in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Students who apply for and are accepted to PLMW will receive free registration for the conference.

Program

Please ignore the program shown under the “program” tab: we are not permitted to list all of the PLMW events there. The schedule for PLMW is as follows:

Sunday, November 15

Monday, November 16

Talks

Call for Mentors

Would you be willing to participate in PLMW as a mentor? This will entail: writing a brief (2-4 sentence) introduction describing yourself, your background, and what topics you would be interested in discussing with students. We will share these introductions with all of the students, and then will provide two opportunities for structured mentoring during SPLASH: on Sunday November 15th between 1500-1620 and 1700-1820 UTC (10am-11:20am and 12:00-1:20pm US East Coast) and/or Monday November 16th between 0500-0620 and 0700-0820 UTC (1pm-2:20pm and 2:20-3:00pm Beijing). During these times, all of the mentors and mentees will access the mentoring workshop on Clowdr and you will meet in small groups. Throughout the conference, we will also encourage mentors to make themselves available to students for conversation. If you would like to volunteer as a mentor, please complete the attached form.

Mentorship Workshop Application

All students who are interested in attending the workshop must apply to do so. The workshop will be free to attend, and students who are selected to attend the workshop will also receive a free conference registration. Please complete this application by October 27th, 2020. We will notify all accepted students by October 30, 2020, but will also admit students to the workshop on a rolling basis between now and Oct 30, and strongly encourage students who are interested in the workshop to apply ASAP.