MIT Rising Stars

Eligibility

Rising Stars is open to graduate students and postdocs of historically marginalized or underrepresented genders. Applicants should be within about 1-3 years of graduating with a PhD at the time of the workshop, or have obtained a PhD no earlier than 2021 and do not currently hold a faculty position. We will also consider special circumstances where candidates have had career breaks, such as for caregiving or other personal reasons. All applications are required to be submitted by June 14, 2024.

Application Materials

1) Research statement (maximum 1 page excluding references, 12pt font, 1-inch margins, PDF)
2) CV (no page limit, PDF)
3) One letter of recommendation

Location

MIT (Cambridge, MA)

Application deadline

June 14, 2024 (11:59 PM EDT, but we will honor submissions until 11:59 PM PDT)

Notification

August 16, 2024

Workshop dates

October 24-25, 2024

Welcome From the Workshop Chairs

Welcome to the 2024 Rising Stars in EECS Workshop at MIT! Rising Stars is a two-day intensive workshop for graduate students and postdocs with historically marginalized or underrepresented genders, who are interested in pursuing academic careers in electrical engineering, computer science, and artificial intelligence and decision making. It was first launched at MIT in 2012, and has since been hosted as an annual event at the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. We are pleased that the program has grown substantially since its beginning. This year’s workshop will bring together the world’s brightest researchers in EECS for two days of scientific interactions and discussions about navigating the early stages of careers in academia.

Our program includes invited presentations on preparing for the academic search process, giving effective job talks, and developing and refining research and teaching statements. Panel discussions will focus on the first years of an academic career, covering topics such as forming and ramping up a research group, leadership, maintaining work-life balance, fundraising, and going through the promotion process.

Past Rising Stars attendees have gone on to secure faculty positions at top universities or research positions in leading industry labs. As attendees, you will have the opportunity to hear from some of these researchers about their experience looking for an academic position and their experience as junior faculty.

In addition, we hope that Rising Stars will give participants a chance to network with their peers, opening the door for ongoing collaboration and professional support for years to come.

We are grateful to the advisors who have supported past participants in Rising Stars. We also thank MIT’s School of Engineering, the Schwarzman College of Computing, the EECS-affiliated research labs (CSAIL, LIDS, MTL, and RLE), and the Rising Stars administrative team for their support.

We look forward to meeting and interacting with you all.