FAQ

Advisor Style

• How would you describe your advising style? Does your approach vary over the course of a student's progress within their degree?

• I try to be hand-on in advising style for junior students and hand-off for senior students. For junior students, I expect to be involved in all aspects of the project: project selection, idea formulation, implementation, experiment design, paper writing, etc. I am always happy and glad to discuss or provide suggestion on implementation details if stidents need such help. As for senior students, I expect them should be independent. I expect senior students to become more proactive in problem selection and idea formulation, and to need fewer advices in implementation and experimental details. For junior students (especially their first and second papers) I will directly edit papers; for senior students, I will prefer to provide feedback and comment on paper drafts.

• What is the best way/technology for students to contact you? Are there time frames in which students should expect to hear from you?

• The best way to contact me is through email and WeChat. Students can also send me messages on WeChat if they want to discuss anything more private or personal. Students should generally expect a quick response from me in one or two hours.

• How often do you plan to meet with students one-on-one (be as specific as possible, it's okay to describe multiple styles that may vary with student needs)? Is an agenda required? How long are meetings?

• I will hold a regular weekly meeting with each PhD student. The meeting typlically is from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the project and students' needs.. If multiple students are involved in one project then they will join this weekly meeting as well. For MS or BS students I schedule regular meetings either every week or every other week depending on the needs of the student and project. I expect students to send a rough one-page summary via email at least 1 day before each meeting, the summary should briefly describe the challenges students meet, the possible solutions if having, the current results, the future plan, etc. I know that sometimes depending on the state of the project or when students have other commitments that a meeting might not be required every week; if a student feels that a regularly scheduled meeting would not be helpful for them given the state of the project then they should feel free to cancel it, giving me at least a day’s notice if possible.

Research Expectations

• Describe your students' primary area(s) of responsibility and expectations (e.g., reading peer-reviewed literature, in-lab working hours, etc.).

• I expect students to have at least one leading research project at all times. Students are responsible for idea formulation (only for senior students), implementation, and experimentation for their project, as well as writing papers. I don’t require students to do their work in any particular place or at any particular time; I also don’t set hours that I expect students to be in the lab. Students are free to choose the working place and time as longas they can make satisfactory progress. I do expect students to be responsive by email (responses within two or three hours) during weekdays, especially from roughly 10am to 5pm but I don't encourage students working on weekends unless the deadline is approaching. I don’t expect students to respond to me outside of those times unless there is something urgent or time-sensitive.

• How do you decide authorship and/or authorship order?

• The authorship order is determined by the contributions. The first author of the paper should be the person who made the most contributions in the project (e.g., the person who finsished 80% of code and ran most of experiments); this can be a PhD student, but may also be an MS student or BS student. The last author of the paper should be the person who led the high-level management and mentorship for the project; this will typically be me, but depending on the project may be another faculty member, an internship manager, or someone else. These persons who wrote the paper and draw figures can also be put into the author list.

• How far in advance of a deadline should a student expect to provide written work for feedback, such as publication drafts?

• For paper deadline I expect to set a strict “internal deadline” roughly three or two weeks before the official deadline. Students should have a complete draft of the paper ready by this internal deadline if they plan to submit the paper.

• Do you have general expectations for graduation?

• I generally expect that a qualified PhD can publish at least three first-author papers in IEEE TVCG and these works should align the research topic well.

Internship

• Are you supportive of your students going on internships?

• Yes, I definitely supprt students to have interships. Internships are a great opportunity to meet and collaborate with new people, grow your network, and gain a new perspective on research or engineering. I think summer is the a good time for internships. I don’t have a limit on the number of internships. However, I expect students to start their internship on the second or third summer of their PhD. Before the internship begins, I hope students can find their research direction and topic first.

Time Away from Campus

• Are there specific standard times that students in your group generally take vacation?

• In general, students take vacations during official holidays (e.g., Spring Festival and National Day) and after paper deadlines. Students working with me will likely submit papers to IEEE VIS at the end of March, and visualization journals (e.g., IEEE TVCG, CGF, and C&G); so after submiiting a paper, students can take two weeks off.