Rising Stars Workshop

Aug 7

at SIGGRAPH 2022

Posted on 2022-07-18

Launched in 2022, the Rising Stars in Computer Graphics program is designed to encourage people of underrepresented genders to become research leaders in computer graphics.

For full details about the Rising Stars program – including eligibility requirements, application guidelines, and an archive of past events and awardees – please visit our Rising Stars Program page.

Program Schedule

All times are listed in Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), the local timezone of the conference's host city of Vancouver.

Sunday, August 7
12:00–1:00 pm Lunch and Introductions (Rising Stars participants only)
12:50–1:00 pm Opening remarks

Adriana Schulz

University of Washington
1:00–2:00 pm Panel 1: Research in Academia

Kavita Bala

Cornell

Alla Sheffer

UBC

Ming Lin

UMD
2:00–2:30 pm Informal discussions with panelists from academia
2:30–3:00 pm Lightning talks by Rising Stars (all panelists from both academia and industry will join)
3:00–3:30 pm Coffee break & informal feedback on talks
3:30–4:30 pm Panel 2: Industry Research

Yael Pritch Knaan

Google

Yuting Ye

Reality Labs Research @ Meta

Deepali Aneja

Adobe
4:30–5:00 pm Informal discussions with panelists from industry
5:30–7:00 pm Dinner at local restaurant
7:00–9:00 pm Social Event (Rising Stars participants only)
Monday, August 8
12:30–1:30 pm Lunch with researchers in academia at a local restaurant
Tuesday, August 9
12:30–1:30 pm Lunch with industry researchers at a local restaurant
Wednesday, August 10
12:30–2:00 pm Berthouzoz Women in Research Lunch (independent of the Rising Stars program, but participants are encouraged to attend)
Individually Scheduled Events
One-on-One get-together with your assigned mentor, to be planned individually. WiGRAPH will sponsor the cost of a meal or coffee break for each participant/mentor pair.
A huge thank you to the wonderful mentors who will be guiding our Rising Stars through their journey over the next two years!

Miri Ben-Chen

Technion

Yulia Gryaditskaya

CVSSP and Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI

Rana Hanocka

University of Chicago

Jessica Hodgins

CMU

Alexandra Ion

CMU

Mina Konaković-Luković

MIT

Ming Lin

University of Maryland

Holly Rushmeier

Yale University

Alla Sheffer

University of British Columbia

Emily Whiting

Boston University

Health and Safety Guidelines

The Rising Stars program will follow the Health & Safety policies of SIGGRAPH 2022, which can be found at the links below:

Please take a few minutes to review the information in both of these links. We appreciate your cooperation to keep everyone safe and healthy!

Lightning Talks (Year 1 Workshop)

Each Rising Star will be asked to give a (very!) short presentation on their research interests. Each participant will have one minute and one slide to say a few words about who you are and what you work on. You can think of this as a research pitch, but we don't intend for this to be a stressful exercise. The goal for Year 1 is to get you thinking about what you’d like to do next, and empower you to dream big – we'll focus on the details of “selling yourself” in Year 2! To make the presentation smooth, everyone should add their (single!) slide to the communal Google Slides presentation. The link to this presentation (along with some additional instructions) can be found in a recent email from Adriana Schulz.

Travel Support Information

WiGRAPH will provide financial support to cover the following costs, up to $2500 total for each participant: travel, hotel, and conference registration. The meals at all of our events will also be covered directly by WiGRAPH – you will not need to pay or file for reimbursement, nor will these costs be counted toward your $2500 expense limit. Meals outside of our hosted events should be covered by each participant, and will not be eligible for reimbursement.

  • Hotel
    • WiGRAPH has booked a block of rooms for participants (no reimbursement required).
    • The room cost is counted toward each participant's $2500 limit, with the price dependent on whether you choose to accept a roommate (default) or whether you request a single accommodation for any reason.
  • Conference Registration
    • Must be arranged and purchased by each individual Rising Star up front, and later reimbursed by WiGRAPH.
    • To get the discounted registration for SIGGRAPH, we kindly ask that you first register for the ACM (Student, if applicable) membership. The cost of ACM membership unfortunately cannot be reimbursed by WiGRAPH, but many labs will sponsor this registration.
  • Travel Expenses
    • Must be arranged and purchased by each individual Rising Star up front, and later reimbursed by WiGRAPH
    • Eligible expenses include airfare or train fare to Vancouver, plus up to $200 worth of transit expenses to/from the airport/station.
      • Note: Round-trip travel to and from Vancouver within the dates of Aug 5-14 are eligible for reimbursement. If your itinerary deviates from these dates, includes multiple destinations, or you will depart from and/or return to a location that differs from your university or permanent address, you will need to provide a comparable flight itinerary demonstrating the cost of a round trip flight from your primary residence on the dates immediately before (August 6) and immediately after the workshop (August 11). We will reimburse the lesser amount of (1) the comparable flight, or (2) your actual flight.
  • Reimbursements
    • Eligible expenses (as detailed above) can be reimbursed after the conference by submitting your itemized receipts and other relevant information (e.g. W8/W9 form) to the WiGRAPH team through email.
    • The reimbursement will be in USD and any currency conversion will happen when the receipts are being processed. The exchange rate could be different from when you pay, but we expect that this should only cause a slight difference in the final amount.

Individualized Accomodations

WiGRAPH strives to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. In this spirit, WiGRAPH sent a survey to each participant in June (via Google Forms), to inquire about individual preferences for e.g. meals, lodging, mentors, and any additional accomodation requests. If you need to amend this information at any point, or have other questions for the WiGRAPH team, please don't hesitate to reach out!

Over the course of the two-year Rising Stars program, WiGRAPH aims to provide mentorship and support to help our recipients become research leaders in computer graphics. The goal of the first year is to encourage participants to explore different career trajectories within graphics research (academia or industry) and empower them to dream “big”. The goal of the second year is to help them successfully navigate the research job market.

A critical piece of this mission is the one-on-one mentorship with an established member of the research community in Computer Graphics!

Mentor Responsibilities

Each mentor is asked to support their mentee throughout the full Rising Stars program. Thus, mentoring is a 2-year commitment with the following expectations:

  • Year 1
    • Meet with the participant during SIGGRAPH 2022 and discuss possible career trajectories. If you will be there in person, WiGRAPH will reimburse a meal or coffee/snack for both of you; otherwise, you can schedule a virtual meeting.
    • Check-in at some point during 2022/2023
  • Year 2
    • Meet with the participant during SIGGRAPH 2023 and discuss a plan for navigating the job market. Again, if you will be there in person, WiGRAPH will reimburse a meal or coffee/snack for both of you; otherwise, you can schedule a virtual meeting.
    • Provide feedback on the candidate’s research statement (at least 1 iteration)
    • Watch and provide feedback on the candidate’s job talk (at least 1 iteration)
    • Be reasonably responsive to questions
    • Make introductions as you see fit

Mentor Selection

After the Rising Stars have been selected, WiGRAPH will collect a pool of possible mentors via a volunteer form. We encourage everyone who is interested in supporting one of our amazing young researchers to apply!

The mentor pairings will be made based on a variety of factors such as mutual research interests, career trajectories, and any other elements that have been deemed important by either the mentor or the mentee, such as availability for in-person vs. virtual meetings, or preferred background/identity characteristics. Although we cannot guarantee a perfect match in all cases, we are committed to finding the best matches possible to ensure a productive and enjoyable mentoring experience for all involved.

This year, we were fortunate enough to have more volunteers than mentees, so only some of our volunteers will be matched according to the above scheme. If you are not matched with a mentee this year, please know that we are so grateful for your willingness to mentor our Rising Stars, and we encourage you to apply again in the future so we can match you in an upcoming cycle of the program!

2022 Rising Stars

Congratulations to our inaugural cohort of Rising Stars! Click on any of our Rising Stars to learn more about them from their introductory spotlight interview!

Lizeth Fuentes

University of Zurich

Maria Larsson

The University of Tokyo

Mackenzie Leake

Adobe Research

Chenxi Liu

Univ. of British Columbia

Karima Ma

MIT CSAIL

Siqi Wang

NYU

Stephanie Wang

Adobe Research

Jane Wu

Stanford University

Mengqi (Mandy) Xia

Cornell University

Emilie Yu

UCSB