Over at TTI-Chicago (where I still am an adjunct professor), we are planning to hire a couple of research assistant professors (3-year non-tenure-track) and possibly a tenure-track position as well in theoretical computer science.
This blog would be remiss in not mentioning the postdoc opportunities for complexity theorists at the new Center for Computational Intractability based in Princeton. But why be in New Jersey when you can live in the land of Obama?
The call for papers for both the 2009 Conference on Computational Complexity and the Conference on Electronic Commerce are up. Both have deadlines slightly after the STOC notification date in early February.
Midwest Theory Day will be held Saturday December 6 at Northwestern, first time at Northwestern since 1993.
And while I'm plugging, don't forget to send your complexity journal submissions to the ACM Transactions on Computation Theory.
Bill and I are off for Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday and we'll see you on Monday.
Job criteria are still highly arbitrary it seems to me. Can't get a postdoc if it's been longer than 5 (or 3?) years since graduation, which it has been for me. Can't get a tenure track position if you haven't published in quantity and recently, which I have not. I am very firmly in the perish category-- a whopping 2 publications for which I was the main or sole author, and minor author on 2 others. None of that has much to do with the quality of one's research, those criteria are just the usual crude yardsticks used to winnow down the mountainous pile of applicants competing for those very scarce positions. There can't be much of a shortage of highly educated people, or a person like me wouldn't be instantly eliminated for the above reasons. So, thank you for the plugs, but unless I have reason to think I have a real chance at a position where the pay isn't dirt (not doing an under $30k/year non-tenure, non-research lecturer gig), I'll not waste your time or mine. I couldn't even rustle up 3 letters of reference now, for a variety of reasons not least that's it's been a while.
ReplyDeleteIf a person such as myself wants to get back into research, is there any way to do so while supporting a family? I got thoroughly sick of being the perpetually broke college student, and also of the jealousy and contempt all self-proclaimed hard working honest people have of privileged deadbeat layabouts such as grad students. So, no way am I going to sign up for another PhD program to earn another degree, however much fun that might be. A big reason why I didn't do a postdoc is that the pay is low. Also it seemed the competition for even those positions is fierce, thanks in large part to scarcity.
Well, perhaps one day I will be able to do research on my own dime if no other way exists, when I have saved and salted away every extra penny I am currently earning in the far higher paying jobs I can get in industry. Perhaps the day I can go back to research will come sooner, now that the anti-intellectuals have lost power.
Many papers on AGT that will be rejected from STOC will end up as EC submissions. With only 3 days between the STOC notification and EC deadline it is clear that the authors will have no opportunity to fix the STOC reviewers' comments. Did you consider pushing the EC deadline for a week? This will yield a much better submissions to EC.
ReplyDeleteThe CFP for EC was extremely hard and annoying to read. How about a CFP in html or pdf formal??
ReplyDeleteThanks Anonymous. We now provide text and PDF versions of the EC CFP.
ReplyDelete"But why be in New Jersey when you can live in the land of Obama?" Answer
ReplyDelete