New CS Research Presentation Series

The Computer Science department is proud to support cutting edge research conducted by our community. Our tireless researchers—and those who want to get started but don't know how—to the Computer Science Weekly Research Presentation Series.

Organized by Professor Nikolay “Nick” Ivanov, the research presentation series is a chance for anyone and everyone to experience CS research. Hosted in Robinson 227 from 3:30pm to 4:30pm every Friday (except for March 15th) the event focuses on students presenting research—whether their own or others. (Please note that this schedule is only applicable to this Spring 2024 semester.)  “In my experience at top research universities, presentation series are core parts of the environment,” says Ivanov. “To cultivate a research culture, we want students and faculty constantly exposed to high quality research, to see how good research is conducted, what challenges researchers face, what is recently published, and most importantly, how top researchers approach their work—and how they get problems solved,” continues Ivanov. Students can either present their personal projects, or dive deep into the work of top level researchers and present those findings. “We want students to read the highest quality research papers, so they can learn how to conduct their own research, and write high quality papers by themselves. We encourage students who may not have research to present those papers as if they were their own, so they can embody the mindsight of top researchers,” continues Ivanov. 

The event is separated into two sections: the presentation itself, and a social hour. The latest display was CeciliaYoung’s presentation; “ORCA: A Distributed Serving System for Transformer-Based Generative Models” by Gyeong-In Yu, Joo Seong Jeong, Geon-Woo Kim, Soojeong Kim, and Byung-Gon Chun. The research was done with the help of FriendliAi, conducted at Seoul National University, and presented at the USENIX OSDI 2022 conference (one of the top CS research conventions). ORCA, the system depicted in the research, is a supplementary transformer program designed to work with ChatGPT to streamline and optimize latency, while working with differing types of scheduling algorithms. The research may not have been her own, but Young had the opportunity to learn from it. “It was a really interesting experience, and it gave me a small insight into what a more professional environment is gonna be like,” says Young. Students and faculty alike have the chance to ask questions for presenting researchers, sharpening the skills of both the enquirer and the enquired.

The time after the presentation is spent socializing with the other attendees, a golden opportunity to establish intra-department connections. “Sometimes, we have clusters of researchers that are not interacting with one another; sometimes they don’t even know that others exist, that they have colleagues under the same roof, same department,” says Ivanov. “So, we try to make people communicate more, and develop potential synergies—to help one another, so to speak.” The presentation after hours are also an opportunity to learn about paid research opportunities within the department.

Students who present and attend eight other sessions earn the Computer Science Research Ambassador Certificate. “We want people who are active in this research series to get something tangible from it, something that would help them with their career by building their resume,” says Ivanov.

“My favorite part about these presentations is to see the students who present, and the audience who attend—to come and see them understanding top level research. I see them develop confidence, I see them empowered, that they feel that if they can understand this difficult thing, they can come up with anything else,” says Ivanov. “Some of those ideas may not be ready for publishing yet, but innovations start as naive ideas—and then they change the world. Seeing this transformation through the inspirational power of these presentations, it's very rewarding, something very important is happening here.” 

Students can sign up for next year's presentations within the second week of the semester. More information will be available once the fall semester begins. Stop by 227 to hone your research capabilities, and connect with our community here at Robinson.

Written by Kiley Parker | Posted 2.23.24