Supervision Style

I wish to build a lab which looks for highly motivated students that enjoy working closely with me and appreciate uncompromising intensity in their pursuit for success. It is important to me that lab group I build is not just built from the best people but also people who have non-traditional backgrounds who might have been overlooked elsewhere, and or identify with underrepresented backgrounds. The collective diversity of the lab is a key pillar to conduct truly innovative research that has the potential to not just challenge but redefine the status quo.

If you’re still here and interested please read more below to find out whether we can be the right fit for each other and have a look the application process.

How do I envision the Phd supervision to happen?

My research supervision style is best characterized as working in a small startup environment where instead of reaching shipping velocity for products we care about (uncompromisingly) scientific excellence. This also means that I envision a mostly flat hierarchy where you are free to bring your own exciting ideas, openly challenge my own ideas that I give you, and also respectfully mold your collaborative ideas with lab members.

Operationally, this will result in me being very actively involved in all of our research projects together. In a typical research project life cycle this could involve a subset of the following: providing support with own research ideas, helping you debug your code, writing your papers, as well helping you prove your main results. As you become more senior, my supervision style is intentional in letting you breathe and develop into your own independent researcher, with in the final stages me providing only minimal support. As a result, a successful Phd graduate under my supervision should be able to easily define their own research problems, set appropriate research hypotheses/goals, test them and also present their findings to the highest scientific standards.

I expect the Phd journey to be intense, but beautifully rewarding because we are working towards ambituous scientific goals in collaboration with the best people in the academic world. The closest analagy is working in an elite sports team where each player is a superstar and on any given day take over and “win the game” for the team.

In some sense, my expectations for a successful Phd will go beyond the minimum requirements to graduate. My dream is to help you become the best in the world in your chosen area of interest, and enable you execute with confidence your bold research visions by the time you graduate. If this speaks to you and you enjoy being in a competitive yet highly nurturing/supportive environment then we are likely to work well together, with me being the rocket fuel for your space ship to the moon and beyond.

Benefits of working with a new faculty

As one of my first students you have the unique opportunity to have a big voice in the shape and direction in the budding lab. This environment will allow you to—if you want to—help recruit future lab members, shape the lab culture including reading groups, lab socials, and also establish best practices.

In addition, I will be significantly involved in your Phd, providing ample hands on supervision on a daily basis—something that is harder and harder to find in the current ML landscape. I will also be giving some of my best ideas that I think are the most interesting to pursue together. We will also work closely as collaborators rather than have a hierarchy between a traditional senior research manager and their reports.

Finally, I will also be actively looking out for the best opportunities for your career development beyond the immediate lab. This could lead to potential future research internships—with many people in famous big tech labs only an email away from me—or academic visits at other universities. My goal here is to empower you with options so that you can make the best decisions both about your budding research interests as well as your larger research career whereever it takes you.

Potential Drawbacks of working with a new faculty

There are, of course, certain pitfalls of working with a new faculty. Having been the first student of my former Phd advisor I feel I can empathize greatly with some of these experiences. The most obvious one, is that we will not immediately be a “famous lab”, and thus some opportunities (e.g. your dream Research scientist/post-doc position) may not be as easily guaranteed. Also, there are expected hiccups along the road, mostly due to me figuring things out and screwing up and inadvertently transmitting the ramifications of these errors to you. In addition, at the beginning the lab will be a small and tight group which has the benefits of everyone being deeply knowledgeable about each others research while also being limited by the diversity of other cool research outside of our immediate lab.