Fellowship/Travel Grants/Workshop Opportunities for Ph.D. Students in EECS
There are plenty of opportunities for Ph.D. students that I myself have benefited a lot from throughout my Ph.D., so I want to write a summary and share them with you! :) This post aims to serve as a table of contents with external links for you to navigate the ones that are suitable for you. I would like to make it as comprehensive as possible, so please feel free to comment if anything is missing!
As a female Ph.D. student in CS, I’m very thankful for a lot of opportunities offered to women in computing. For example, I’m lucky enough to have been selected to participate in quite a few workshops for female Ph.D. students where I have learned very valuable lessons and have met many amazing people. These experiences had a large impact on my life and my career path, so I also listed those opportunities for female students in the end and I hope you can benefit from them as well! :)
Note: This summary is based on my own experience (I’m an international Ph.D. student in CS at the University of Southern California). This means most opportunities are only applicable to students in U.S.-based universities or CS major. This article is written in 2019 and things may change over time.
External Fellowships
CMU has a great summary of the fellowship opportunities here: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~gradfellowships/
This list from CMU is very comprehensive. Remember to check the requirements early in your Ph.D. to get a rough idea on the deadlines as some fellowships are only for students in a specific year (e.g., Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship is for third-year Ph.D. students only). Also, checking out the expectations (e.g., fellowship recipients) can help you to set a goal for yourself and motivate you in your work! ;)
Travel Grants
- First off, the student volunteer program (most conferences have this on their websites) is one way to reduce the cost besides the travel grants because the registration fee is usually waived (~$500). You can also get networking opportunities as a student volunteer.
P.S. Check out my other post (How to get the most out of your first research conference) for networking tips! :) - SIGSOFT CAPS (link). I’m only familiar with SIGSOFT because my community is Software Engineering, but other SIG groups should have travel support as well (e.g., SIGAI Student Support).
- NSF Travel Award. In the Software Engineering community, NSF Travel Award always uses the same application form as SIGSOFT CAPS and the information can be found on the conference’s website, e.g., the travel support at our upcoming conference ASE 2019 (link).
- ACM-W Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences (for women)
- Travel Grants offered by Student Government (or similar organizations) at your university. This is different in each university. For example, at my university USC, you can apply for travel grants here: https://gsg.usc.edu/student-funding/travel-grants/
- Women in Science & Engineering (WiSE) Travel Grant at your university (for women). For example, at USC, you can apply for WiSE travel grants here: https://wise.usc.edu/our-programs/grants-and-awards/postdocs-and-phd-students/travel-grants/
Tips: at least at USC, WiSE travel grant is really nice because it doesn’t require you to book U.S. airlines where most grants do (e.g., NSF Travel Award). Sometimes U.S. airlines can be so much more expensive than non-U.S. airlines…
Workshops
There are a lot of workshops at the university/department level on various topics and they can be very useful, especially when you’re new to the Ph.D. program and there’s so much you need to learn. For example, USC has Ph.D. Academic Career Mentoring Panel Series, Byte of Life Lunch Seminars, and many more.
I don’t want to list all the different ones since they vary in different universities, but I do want to make the point that sometimes you can benefit more from “less research-oriented” workshops than from a research talk for example. Yes, technical skills are important, but general research skills (e.g., communication, presentation, paper writing, time management, self-confidence, networking, etc.) are even more important to pick up early on because they can help you significantly in the long term. Also, we have plenty of opportunities to pick up technical skills quickly (e.g., reading papers and other materials, talking to your advisor and other people, taking classes, etc.), but not as many opportunities to learn those highly-valuable non-technical skills.
So check out what’s offered at your university and don’t always automatically ignore those emails about workshops/events/seminars... I know our time is super precious but sometimes what you learn from these workshops/events/seminars can make your research more efficient and smoother! So you’re actually saving time in the long run! :)
As promised, I’ll list some workshop opportunities for women below that I myself benefited a lot from. Highly recommended! :)
- Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC): https://ghc.anitab.org/
This is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists, including undergraduates, graduates, faculty/staff from universities and engineers/managers from industry, etc. There is so much going on with very diverse topics, which can get very hectic. You can check the agenda for GHC 2019 to get some ideas on what to expect. There is also a large career fair going on in parallel, so make sure to do your homework in advance to prioritize the things you want to attend in order to get the most out of it.
Scholarships: The tickets are expensive and in high demand, but there are a lot of scholarships available to cover the trip from universities, companies, GHC organizers, etc.
Here are some examples: GHC 2019 Scholarships, Hoppers Program (student volunteer with registration fee waived), scholarships offered by Microsoft/Google/Facebook (link), etc.
My experience: I attended GHC in 2015 (the 2nd year of my Ph.D.) and it was very inspirational! I came back very motivated! :) I think it’s very useful when you haven’t decided on your career path. You can get different perspectives from the diverse speakers/audience at GHC. Later on, if you are already very motivated and know exactly what you want (e.g., pursue a career in academia), then you might benefit more from smaller but more tailored workshops (e.g., Rising Stars Workshop below) since it’s easier to find people/talks of interest.
2. CRA-WP Grad Cohort: https://cra.org/cra-wp/grad-cohort-workshop/
This workshop is specifically designed for female Ph.D. students in their first 3 years. There will be 3 sessions in parallel targeting first-, second-, and third-year Ph.D. students. You don’t have to go to the sessions designed for your year if you find other sessions are more interesting to you. You can check out the agenda for Grad Cohort 2019 to get some ideas on what to expect.
Update: CRA-W (Women) is renamed to CRA-WP (Widening Participation) as of September 2019, so it’s possible that this workshop will not only target female students later on.
Scholarships: If you are selected to attend, the trip is fully funded.
My experience: I attended Grad Cohort in 2017 (end of my third year) and learned a lot from the talks, mentoring sessions, and other participants!
For example, I still remember a talk about self-confidence from a senior professor. She mentioned that at the beginning of her career when people congratulated her on the accepted papers, she would always feel shy and say something like “we just got lucky this time” despite all the hard work she had put in. This is generally a common characteristic of women to underestimate their own contributions and feel uncomfortable with other people’s compliments. Later on, she learned to acknowledge her hard work and feel good about the accomplishments she deserves. This change brings positive vibes and makes her more confident and motivated during her career.
Another example is the “Monday morning rule” that I learned at Grad Cohort where you ask yourself if you really want to go to work when you wake up on Monday mornings. If you feel very reluctant, then it’s a red flag to re-evaluate your work to see what might need to be changed (e.g., research topics, collaborators, or even your job). Our work is a very big chunk of our lives, so it’s very important to do the work you enjoy and don’t be afraid of making changes!
Update in 2023: I’m writing a grant proposal with my roommate at Grad Cohort back in 2017!! You never know ;)
3. Rising Stars Workshop: https://publish.illinois.edu/rising-stars/
This workshop is designed for women graduate students (within about 1–2 years of graduating with a Ph.D.) and postdocs who are interested in pursuing academic careers in computer science, computer engineering and electrical engineering. This is a relatively small workshop (~80 participants in 2018, no parallel sessions), so it is very selective. If you are selected, the trip is fully funded. You can check the agenda for Rising Stars 2018 to get some ideas on what to expect.
I will be attending Rising Stars 2019 at UIUC. Feel free to connect with me if you’re going as well! :)
4. ADF Rising Stars Asia: https://risingstarsasia.org/index.php
This is a new program started in 2018. I don’t have experience with it, but it seems like a similar workshop to “3. Rising Stars Workshop”, featuring speakers in Asia and is held in Asia. You can check the agenda for ADF Rising Stars Aisa 2018 to know more. My friend participated in 2018 and she really enjoyed it!
5. Early Career Mentoring Workshops: https://cra.org/cra-wp/early-career-mentoring-workshops/
6. Last but not least, the workshops offered by women organizations at your university are great opportunities too! For example, USC has Women in Science & Engineering (WiSE), Women in Engineering (WIE), Women in Computing Club (WinCC), etc.
