{"id":3771,"date":"2015-07-16T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/2015\/07\/16\/2015-summer-school-inspires-top-phd-students\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T20:59:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T03:59:17","slug":"2015-summer-school-inspires-top-phd-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/2015-summer-school-inspires-top-phd-students\/","title":{"rendered":"2015 Summer School inspires top PhD students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Participants of the 2015 Microsoft Research Cambridge Summer School\" src=\"https:\/\/msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net\/media\/MSDNBlogsFS\/prod.evol.blogs.msdn.com\/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles\/00\/00\/01\/32\/81\/7444.2015CambridgeSS-group-496px.jpg\" alt=\"Participants of the 2015 Microsoft Research Cambridge Summer School\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The first week of July didn\u2019t just see the arrival of extraordinarily high temperatures across Europe\u2014it also brought extraordinarily high energy to Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, as 81 top PhD students gathered for the tenth annual Microsoft Research Cambridge PhD Summer School. Hailing from 35 research institutions spanning 16 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the students brought huge diversity to the Cambridge Lab, not just in terms of national origin and culture, but also in their research backgrounds, which extended beyond computer science and engineering into the realms of design and various natural and social sciences. The event\u2019s attendees included recipients of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/academic-program\/phd-scholarship-europe-middle-east-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Research PhD Scholarships<\/a>, along with students whose work involves our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/academic-program\/joint-research-centers\/\" target=\"_blank\">EMEA Joint Research Centres<\/a> and those who are collaborating on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/academic-program\/microsoft-azure-for-research\/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Azure for Research<\/a> projects\u00a0or are otherwise partnering with Microsoft Research Cambridge.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"PhD Summer School\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/NuhZ3IQfcxg?feature=oembed&rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Microsoft Research Cambridge Laboratory Director, Andrew Blake, opened the Summer School, welcoming the students before they launched into an ambitious four-day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/event\/phd-summer-school-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\">agenda<\/a>\u2014a carefully designed mix of scientific talks and demonstrations, training sessions and other practical activities, and social events that offered lots of opportunities for networking.<\/p>\n<p>Following are the highlights of this year\u2019s PhD Summer School.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Talks from invited experts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The invited talks began with considerable excitement when Hermann Hauser, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of such high-tech companies as Acorn Computers (famous for the BBC Micro, which dominated the UK educational computer market in the 1980s, and later spun out ARM and a number of other companies), gave a talk entitled \u201cTechnology Development.\u201d Hauser first described earlier waves of computing, before concentrating on machine learning and artificial intelligence as technologies that could transform not just our economy but every aspect of our future lives.<\/p>\n<p>Other invited speakers included Marta Kwiatkowska, professor of computing systems at the University of Oxford, who explained aspects of DNA computing in her talk entitled \u201cComputing Reliably with Molecular Walkers,\u201d and Bernhard Sch\u00f6lkopf, director of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, who delivered a talk on \u201cEmpirical Inference in Intelligent Systems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Researcher talks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The researcher talks and demonstrations gave a broad overview of the activity in the Cambridge Lab, from environmental science and computational biology, to various aspects of core computer science, design and human-computer interaction. The students were especially attentive\u2014you might even say awestruck\u2014when Microsoft researcher and Turing Award winner Sir Tony Hoare spoke on \u201cThe Laws of Programming with Concurrency,\u201d giving a historic account of his work on Hoare logic and communicating sequential processes (CSP).<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 506px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Researcher talks gave the students an overview of the cutting-edge work underway at Microsoft Research Cambridge.\" src=\"https:\/\/msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net\/media\/MSDNBlogsFS\/prod.evol.blogs.msdn.com\/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles\/00\/00\/01\/32\/81\/3301.2015CambridgeSS-talk.jpg\" alt=\"Researcher talks gave the students an overview of the cutting-edge work underway at Microsoft Research Cambridge.\" width=\"496\" height=\"323\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researcher talks gave the students an overview of the cutting-edge work underway at Microsoft Research Cambridge.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Code Hunt <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A special highlight was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/code-hunt\/\" target=\"_blank\">Code Hunt<\/a> contest, during which the attendees could demonstrate their C# or Java programming ability by solving a series of increasingly complex coding puzzles. About half the students participated, and the winners received special acknowledgement at the formal dinner on Thursday evening at <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jesus.cam.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jesus College Cambridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Training activities<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The training activities are an all-time favourite in the Summer School agenda. Besides professional coaching on how to deliver a research presentation and how to present a poster at an international conference, students heard lectures from senior Microsoft researchers, who shared their general learnings on research and how to pursue a successful research career.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Poster sessions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net\/media\/MSDNBlogsFS\/prod.evol.blogs.msdn.com\/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles\/00\/00\/01\/32\/81\/1754.2015CambridgeSS-dinner270px.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"178\" height=\"270\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lunchtimes provided food for the brain as well as the body, as the PhD students presented their posters to the 100-plus researchers (and almost as many summer interns) of the Cambridge Lab. Presenters got invaluable feedback from their peers and the Microsoft researchers, and also benefited from the insightful advice of poster coach Sue Duraikan from Duraikan Training, a consultancy that provides support in designing and delivering learning strategies.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small; color: #808080;\">Even PhD students need to eat, and they dined in style at the formal dinner at Jesus College Cambridge. Ah, and you thought this was a photo from Hogwarts!<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The 2015 PhD Summer School closed with a packed lunch on Friday\u2014not every meal can be as refined as the dinner at Jesus College! As in other years, I was sorry to see the event end, since I really enjoy getting caught up in the excitement of these students who are on the cusp of great careers. Fortunately, I can look forward to next year\u2019s event, and hope that the weather will once again put the \u201csummer\u201d in the Microsoft Research Cambridge Summer School.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/scarlets\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Scarlet Schwiderski-Grosche<\/em><\/a><strong><em>, <\/em><\/strong><em>Senior Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Learn more<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/event\/phd-summer-school-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\">PhD Summer School 2015<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/academic-program\/phd-scholarship-europe-middle-east-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/lab\/microsoft-research-cambridge\/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Research Cambridge<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first week of July didn\u2019t just see the arrival of extraordinarily high temperatures across Europe\u2014it also brought extraordinarily high energy to Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, as 81 top PhD students gathered for the tenth annual Microsoft Research Cambridge PhD Summer School. Hailing from 35 research institutions spanning 16 countries in Europe, the Middle East [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32627,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194467,194455],"tags":[194658,193658,194797,194893,195075,186434,195474,195475,195789,196303,196435,196818,196824,197010,197093,197220],"research-area":[13556,13547],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artifical-intelligence","category-machine-learning","tag-andrew-blake","tag-azure-for-research","tag-bernhard-scholkopf","tag-cambridge-lab","tag-code-hunt","tag-education","tag-emea","tag-emea-joint-research-centers","tag-hermann-hauser","tag-marta-kwiatkowska","tag-microsoft-research-cambridge","tag-phd-scholarship-programme","tag-phd-summer-school-2015","tag-researchers","tag-scarlet-schwiderski-grosche","tag-sir-tony-hoare","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[199561],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[204068,215866],"related-groups":[],"related-projects":[171432],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","byline":"","formattedDate":"July 16, 2015","formattedExcerpt":"The first week of July didn\u2019t just see the arrival of extraordinarily high temperatures across Europe\u2014it also brought extraordinarily high energy to Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, as 81 top PhD students gathered for the tenth annual Microsoft Research Cambridge PhD Summer School. Hailing from 35&hellip;","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283688,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions\/283688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}