Almost 90 PhD students convened for the seventh PhD Summer School
The first week of July was an exciting one for us here at Microsoft Research Cambridge, as we hosted the seventh PhD Summer School (opens in new tab). Each year, we invite scholars in the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme (opens in new tab), as well as students from partnering universities and institutions, to join us in Cambridge, England, for a week of immersive research, technical talks, transferrable skills talks, poster sessions, and socializing.
This year’s event was attended by almost 90 students from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Attendees came from as far afield as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and from 14 European countries. Our Russian guests included the five winners of the Microsoft Research Computer Vision Contest (opens in new tab). We also welcomed nine students from the EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network TransForm (opens in new tab), which partners with our Cambridge Systems and Networking (opens in new tab) group.
Spotlight: Event
Inclusive Digital Maker Futures for Children via Physical Computing
This workshop will bring together researchers and educators to imagine a future of low-cost, widely available digital making for children, both within the STEAM classroom and beyond.
Our school “curriculum” featured research talks covering the spectrum of work being done across our lab research groups. Topics included computational methods for planetary prediction, software verification, functional programming, datacenter performance, medical imaging, and crowdsourcing. Our technical talks covered Microsoft and Microsoft Research technologies including Kinect for Windows (opens in new tab), .NET Gadgeteer (opens in new tab), Microsoft Academic Search (opens in new tab), F# (opens in new tab), and cloud technologies.
In addition to the technical discussions, we also spent some time focusing on personal development. This year’s talks included several Summer School classics such as “How to Write a Great Research Paper and Give a Great Talk” by Simon Peyton-Jones (opens in new tab) and “A Rough Guide to Being an Entrepreneur” by Jack Lang (opens in new tab) from the Judge Business School at Cambridge University. We also included some new talks in the mix, including discussions on “Strategic Thinking for Researchers” and “Intellectual Property at Microsoft.”
We weren’t the only presenters at this year’s Summer School. Our students displayed their research to dozens of Microsoft researchers during our three lunchtime poster sessions. 32 of our Microsoft PhD scholars, whose PhD studies are funded through Microsoft Research Connections (opens in new tab), had the opportunity to meet with their Microsoft co-supervisors during this period as well.
“[The students] really liked the poster session, especially the opportunity to get direct, one-to-one relevant feedback from Microsoft senior researchers,” said Jon Crowcroft (opens in new tab), professor of Communications Systems in the Cambridge Computer Lab and PhD supervisor/advisor to some of the attending students.
Incentivized by the Alan Turing Centenary, we wanted to do something special this year, so we organized a networking event one afternoon. The afternoon began with a pair of keynote talks: “Can Computers Understand Their Own Programs?” by principal researcher and ACM Turing Award winner Sir Tony Hoare (opens in new tab), and “The EDSAC Replica Project” by former Lab Director Andrew Herbert. The afternoon continued with a DemoFest, featuring Microsoft Research technologies and five winning projects from the Computer Vision Contest.
We all enjoyed the week tremendously and wish the “class” of 2012 all the best. We already look forward to next year’s Summer School!
—Scarlet Schwiderski-Grosche (opens in new tab), Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Research Connections EMEA
Learn More
- PhD Summer School 2012 (opens in new tab)
- Microsoft Research Cambridge lab (opens in new tab)
- Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme (opens in new tab)
- Microsoft Research Computer Vision Contest (opens in new tab)
- Microsoft Research Connections Europe and Russia (opens in new tab)
- Microsoft Research Connections Africa and the Middle East (opens in new tab)