Illinois Welcomes Rising Stars 2019

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is welcoming 90 promising early-career women in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science to campus this week (October 29 – November 1, 2019) as Illinois Computer Science and ECE ILLINOIS co-host Rising Stars in EECS. Rising Stars is an intensive workshop for women graduate students and postdocs who are interested in pursuing academic careers.

Launched at MIT in 2012, the annual event has since been hosted at the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and Stanford University. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is delighted to host the largest class of participants to date for the 2019 workshop.

Illinois CS Department Head Nancy M. Amato and AMD Jerry Sanders Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Wen-mei Hwu are this year’s co-chairs for the workshop, which provides a series of panels and discussions aimed at providing advice and networking opportunities as participants prepare for their job search.

“We’re thrilled to be this year’s hosts for Rising Stars and to be able to provide advice and encouragement to women who are interested in faculty careers,” said Amato.

“Role models and mentors are vitally important in making the leap from graduate student to professor,” said Hwu. “This is an incredible opportunity to expand your network.”

New in 2019, Rising Stars will be offering a variety of professional development resources that will run in tandem with workshop sessions. With a focus on one-to-one mentoring, the Rising Stars Career Center will allow participants to personalize their workshop experience to best meet their professional and career needs. Sessions to shoot portraits and research highlight videos will also be available. 

Illinois CS Assistant Professor Dakshita Khurana was a participant in 2017. “The Rising Stars workshop was an incredible opportunity to learn from the best of the best in academia, interact with phenomenal mentors, and connect with outstanding peers,” she said.

The Rising Stars 2019 Organizing Committee includes:

Katherine Rose Driggs-Campbell  Assistant Professor, ECE ILLINOIS
Karrie Karahalios, Professor, Illinois CS
Robin Hillary Kravets, Professor, Illinois CS
Ranjitha Kumar, Assistant Professor, Illinois CS
Ruta Mehta, Assistant Professor, Illinois CS
Elyse Rosenbaum, Melvin and Anne Louise Hassebrock Professor, ECE ILLINOIS
Lara Waldrop, Assistant Professor, ECE ILLINOIS
Tandy Warnow, Founder Professor of Engineering, Illinois CS

Learn more about Rising Stars 2019.