Category Archives: Career

WimNet’s Columbia University Electrical Engineering Department Awards

My research group (that is, professor Gil Zussman‘s WimNet lab) has had a very good day today, at the Columbia University Electrical Engineering Department BBQ where this year’s graduate student awards were announced. Saleh Soltan received the Armstrong Memorial Award, … Continue reading

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Mentoring Students

While much is written about various approaches and activities grad students can use to keep engaged and motivated and to succeed (such as wonderful advice provided here, here, here, here, and in many other articles and posts), one particular useful … Continue reading

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My favorite collection: running countries and states

When I was in grad school, I started a bit of a game with myself, keeping track of countries, states, and provinces where I went running. The rules of this game are simple: a country, a state, or a province … Continue reading

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Ph.D. Dissertation Defended

Yes, I did it! Wednesday April 24th, 4pm EST, following a presentation attended by many of my fellow WimNet group members and coauthors from other groups, and following an intense and engaged period of questioning by the committee, I was … Continue reading

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Why are we Doing This? (1) Learning, (2) Growth.

Rob Margolies, a Ph.D. student in my research group, has recently written a great blog post about why Ph.D. students push themselves so hard. In short, it is because we really feel that we are learning and growing, in many … Continue reading

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Microsoft Research Presentation Video

A video of a talk I recently gave at Microsoft Research Seattle is now available online. In this talk I introduced the Energy Harvesting Active Networked Tags Project and talked about my contributions to the project and to the overall … Continue reading

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From Mobile Ads to Revenue

MIT Technology Review has recently published an interesting article on why mobile ads do not (yet) lead to high revenues. As a reason, they are citing advertisers’ troubles with identifying whether the ads are working. Specifically, they trace these troubles … Continue reading

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Top 10 Reasons Students Fail A Ph.D.

I found a lovely summary of the typical reasons Ph.D. students struggle and fail. Well worth reading over for inspiration and reflection. My favorite part: “A Ph.D. is not the final undertaking. It’s the start of a scientific career. A … Continue reading

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Postdocs in Canada: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships

I have not been keeping up with Canadian NSERC grant options, and only now discovered Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships, that offer attractive postdoctoral salaries to both Canadian and international researchers. Fantastic opportunities for foreigners that want to build a scientific career … Continue reading

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Startup Jobs: Misconceptions

Excellent article on misconceptions about startup jobs for technical people — http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-your-time-in-crappy-startup-jobs/ Many points are dead on, yet somehow very rarely get stated. A tidbit that resonates with me: startups are often perceived as places where engineers will be changing … Continue reading

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