Hello, Dallas!

A free travel is what PhD students adore the most. I had a privilege to visit Dallas, right after a travel to Hawaii for the ICML2023, as a guest speaker for the Korean-American Scientist-Engineers Association’s UKC 2023. I gave a talk about academic frustrations as an interdiscplinary scholar between law and computer science.

KSEA, UKC, FIRE… wow, very Korean!

There’s a lot to say about this conference (I did not know that the CEO of Elsevier was a Korean!) and its branch group called FIRE for younger-generation scientists and engineers. This conference spans across extremely varied disciplines from agriculture, pharma, bio, computer science, to bias research, and so many small themes/groups/sponsors/workshops are woven together, but somehow very carefully managed under a centralized governance.

ICML2023 was super big (over 7,000 participants?!), somewhat loose, and decentralized: Each participant was supposed to navigate their own ways. But in KSEA UKC, I was given very clear roles/expectations and the organizers made sure I participated in every role I committed to and they pre-arranged for me. It’s a lot of work for them and me, but at least, I felt that no one would be isolated during the conference due to this meticulous planning and implementation.

My talk about Academic Frustrations

I am by no means a master of overcoming academic frustrations, actually the opposite. I have never successfully moved on from scathing rejections. I have lived through/with them.

Although my talk is entitled “Career Flash Talk,” I didn’t much to share my “highlights,” yet. My transitions from public policy to interdisciplinary research can be intriguing, but I have not been in the mood for bragging about it. To be honest, there was nothing to brag about.

Thus, I decided to share my genuine frustrations (that potentially relate to many people across disciplines) and small tips that I have tried to familarize myself with. Here is my presentation file. I hope that I will break down each tips into the blog post soon. The presentation has my hand-drawings, lol.

Wow, Award!

Surprisingly, I got the first place among eight Career Flash Talk speakers.