Instruction for Applying and Contact

Prospective PhD Students : Please apply here . The deadline is December 20 for Fall admissions and August 31 for Spring admissions. In your application form, please mention my name as a potential advisor (otherwise I may miss your application material). You are more than welcome to send me an email with your CV and relevant research experience. The admission requirements on GPA, GRE, and TOEFL/IELTS are flexible if you have a strong background.

Current Penn State Undergraduate Students : Please send me an email with (1) your CV and transcript, (2) at least one of my publication you read, (3) your proposal of what you want to build upon it, (4) one past project experience that is most relevant to your proposal. The minimum time commitment is 10 hours per week for six months, and meaningful research outcomes usually require more time than this. You will take 3 credits of CMPSC 496 for one semester of research.

Current Penn State Master's Students : I will take 1-2 Master's students per semester who are on thesis track. I don't take Master's students who are on non-thesis track. Please send me an email with (1) your CV and transcript, (2) at least one of my publication you read, (3) your proposal of what you want to build upon it, (4) one past project experience that is most relevant to your proposal. The minimum time commitment is 10 hours per week for six months, and meaningful research outcomes usually require more time than this. You will take 3 credits of CSE 600 for one semester of research.

Current Penn State PhD Students : If you want to switch advisor, please first gain the permission of adivsor change from your current advisor before you reach out to me.

Requirements and Advice

In addition to measurable metrics (GPA, TOEFL, GRE, number of publications), here are several other qualities that an (potential) outstanding research should have:

Highly Self-Motivated. Have a genuine interest in your research area. Have a positive attitude toward problem-solving. Own your PhD project .

Read Broadly and Consistently. Ideally one paper a day. Here is an excellent video on How to read research papers by Andrew Ng .

Focus on one area and be Ambitious about the Quality (and then Quantity). The best researchers are famous because of their best things. Here is a picture of Bill Freeman to illustrate this.



Disseminate your research. "Science not communicated is science not done." Finish your first draft one week before the real deadline (Check this blog post on Last Minute Writing Advice). Learn how to write reviews for other papers (Check this blog post on Advice on Reviewing for EMNLP). Learn how to write rebuttals (check this excellent blog post on How we write rebuttals by Devi Parikh). Proactively talk to other people about your research. Make your research influential through slides, talks, posters, and blogs. Very important for your job search! For oral presentations, I recommend How To Speak by Patrick Winston .

About Penn State University and Penn State CSE

Penn State University : Penn State is one of "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The University Park campus is labeled one of the "Public Ivies". Penn State is ranked high in different rankings in 2021: Nationally 63 by US News and Globally 101 by QS.

Penn State CSE : Penn State CS is ranked No. 27 in the US on csrankings.org, a metrics-based ranking of top computer science institutions based on publications.

State College / University Park: State College/University Park is a college town in Pennsylvania. Driving takes 2.5 hours to Pittsburgh, 3 hours to Philadelphia, 3.5 hours to DC, and 4 hours to NYC. The University Park Airport, which is 15 mins by driving from the campus, has direct flights to Philadelphia, DC, Detroit, and Chicago.