Public service announcement for LICS (workshop) participants

This is a public service announcement. If you plan to attend a LICS 2017 workshop and/or the main conference, and you have not booked your flight and accommodation yet, I strongly suggest that you do so ASAP. Iceland is a very hot holiday destination these days and it becomes fully booked soon, especially during the summer months. We already have about 160 registered participants for the conference and accommodation is disappearing at a rate of knots.

Ten PhD positions in CS at the Gran Sasso Science Institute

The Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI - http://www.gssi.it/), a recently established international PhD school and a Centre for advanced studies in L'Aquila (ITALY), offers 10 PhD positions in Computer Science (CS).

The PhD program in CS is mainly concerned with heterogeneous distributed systems and their interactions. Different perspectives are offered to provide students with the necessary tools for the design, the implementation, the management and the use of distributed systems. The main research areas of interest are:

- Efficient algorithms for communication networks and social networks;

- Formal methods for systems correctness and analysis;

- Software engineering for efficient and resilient applications.

Apart from pursuing their own research studies, the successful candidates will have the opportunity to cooperate with members of the research group and of the Scientific Board, as well as with the frequent guests of the Institute. Detailed information about the CS research group and about the activities for the PhD program in CS can be found at http://cs.gssi.it/

The fellowships are awarded for three years and their yearly amount is € 16.159,91 gross. Moreover all PhD students:

- will have free accommodation at the GSSI facilities and luncheon vouchers;

- will have tuition fees waived;

- will be covered by insurance against accident and/or injury.

The application must be submitted through the online form available at http://www.gssi.it/phd/ and must be accompanied by the curriculum vitae of the applicant, and by a letter of motivation describing expertise and general research interests together with future plans and reasons for having chosen GSSI for PhD studies.

The deadline for application is: 31st May 2017 at 18.00 (Italian time).

18 postdoctoral positions at the Gran Sasso Science Institute

The Gran Sasso Science Institute offers 18 postdoctoral positions for research activity in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Social Sciences.

Applicants must hold a PhD degree or an equivalent qualification. 

The research grants are awarded for two years and their yearly amount is € 36.000,00 gross. 

The application must be submitted through the online form available at www.gssi.it/postdoc/ by May 15, 2017 at 6 p.m. (Italian time zone).

For more information, please consult the Call for Applications at www.gssi.it/postdoc/ or write an email to info@gssi.it.

A description of research in computer science at GSSI is available here. 

Feel free to share this announcement as you see fit.

The faculty is the university: The case of IMT Lucca

The physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi famously told President Eisenhower that "the faculty is the university." This is a quote I like to use when discussing with university administrators and I was reminded of it these days while reading opinions aired by several Italian academics on IMT Lucca, an Italian centre of advanced study and an international PhD school.

IMHO, a recent case of possible plagiarism involving an IMT graduate hasn't been handled well at all by the top management of that institution. However, to my mind, this event should not be used to debase the excellent work that our colleagues have done and are doing at that institute, which attracts to Italy and trains a good number of high-quality PhD students from abroad, and conducts cutting-edge research in its areas of interest. In fact, I do believe that schools of advanced study such as IMT can play an important role in the academic environment in Italy by attracting talent from abroad and nurturing Italian young researchers within an international research environment. IMHO, the variety those schools add to higher education in my native country is beneficial.

I would definitely encourage my (former) students to take up a PhD or a postdoctoral position within the SysMA group, to work with Rocco De Nicola, Mirco Tribastone and the young researchers in that group, five of whom are from outside Italy. I would also point people interested in control and dynamical systems to the DYSCO group, led by Alberto Bemporad.

These are just two examples from areas that are close to my own research interests. However, the quality of the faculty and of the postdocs and students at IMT is consistently high. I have had the pleasure of giving lectures on basic research skills to IMT students of a varied background, including students in cultural heritage, and thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them.

Summing up, my message to the colleagues who are currently forming an opinion on IMT Lucca based on the actions of its management is simple: "The faculty is the university." Look carefully at the (IMHO, excellent) work done by our colleagues working at that institute and form an opinion based on it, not on mediatic noise.