13th Women in Machine Learning Workshop (WiML 2018)
The 13th WiML Workshop is co-located with NeurIPS in Montreal, Quebec on Monday, December 3rd, 2018.
Machine learning is one of the fastest growing areas of computer science research. Search engines, text mining, social media analytics, face recognition, DNA sequence analysis, speech and handwriting recognition, healthcare analytics are just some of the applications in which machine learning is routinely used.
In spite of the wide reach of machine learning and the variety of theory and applications, it covers, the percentage of female researchers is lower than in many other areas of computer science. Most women working in machine learning rarely get the chance to interact with other female researchers, making it easy to feel isolated and hard to find role models.
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The annual Women in Machine Learning Workshop is the flagship event of Women in Machine Learning. This technical workshop gives female faculty, research scientists, and graduate students in the machine learning community an opportunity to meet, network and exchange ideas, participate in career-focused panel discussions with senior women in industry and academia and learn from each other. Underrepresented minorities and undergraduates interested in machine learning research are encouraged to attend. We welcome all genders; however, any formal presentations, i.e. talks and posters, are given by women. We strive to create an atmosphere in which participants feel comfortable to engage in technical and career-related conversations.
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Now in its 13th year, the 2018 workshop is co-located with NIPS in Montreal, Canada. A History of WiML poster was created to celebrate the 10th workshop, also held in 2015 in Montreal, Canada.
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Besides this un-workshop and annual workshop which is co-located with NeurIPS, Women in Machine Learning also organizes events such as lunch at ICML and AAAI conferences, maintains a public directory of women active in ML, profiles the research of women in ML, and maintains a list of resources for women working in ML.
Invited Speakers
Location
This workshop takes place in Palais des Congrès in Montreal.
Convention Center Rooms
More details about the workshop and poster sessions will be provided shortly.
Sunday, December 2
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Registration desk open
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6:00 pm – 10:00 pm
WiML Dinner (Optional) (Separate registration required)
Monday, December 3
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All events are held in Rooms 517AB and 516C, except for the evening poster session, which takes place in Room 210.
8:00 am – 12:00 pm
Registration Open
8:00 am - 9:00 am
Breakfast
9:00 am – 9:10 am
Opening Remarks – (WiML Organizers)
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9:10 am – 9:50 am
Invited talk 1 – Isabel Kloumann
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9:50 am – 10:10 am
Contributed talk 1 – Lanlan Liu
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10:10 am – 10:30 am
Contributed talk 2 – Megan Maher
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10:30 am – 10:50 am
Coffee Break
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10:50 am – 11:30 am
Invited talk 2 – Po-Ling Loh
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11:30 am – 11:50 am
Contributed talk 3 – Amanda Rios
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11:50 am – 1:00 pm
Mentorship Circles
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11:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Lunch + Poster Session
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2:30 pm – 3:10 pm
Invited talk 3 – Raquel Urtasun
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3:10 pm – 3:30 pm
Contributed talk 4 – Jennifer Drexler
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3:30 pm – 3:50 pm
Coffee Break
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3:50 pm – 4:30 pm
Invited talk 4 – Emma Brunskill
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4:30 pm – 4:40 pm
Closing remarks
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6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Poster Session 2 (co-located with NeurIPS reception)
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NeurIPS Main Conference (NeurIPS registration required)
5:00 pm
NeurIPS Opening Remarks
Call for Participation
The 13th WiML Workshop is co-located with NIPS in Montreal, Quebec on Monday, December 3rd, 2018.
The workshop is a one-day event with invited speakers, oral presentations, and posters. The event brings together faculty, graduate students, and research scientists for an opportunity to connect and exchange ideas. There will be a panel discussion and a mentoring session to discuss current research trends and career choices in machine learning. Underrepresented minorities and undergraduates interested in pursuing machine learning research are encouraged to participate. While all presenters will identify primarily as female, all genders are invited to attend.
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Important Dates
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September 7th, 2018 11:59pm PST – Abstract submission deadline
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October 15th, 2018 – Notification of abstract acceptance
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TBA – Travel grant application deadline
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TBA – Registration Deadline
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December 3rd, 2018 – Workshop Day
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Submission Instructions
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We strongly encourage students, post-docs and researchers who primarily identify as women or nonbinary in all areas of machine learning to submit an abstract describing new, previously, or concurrently published research. We welcome abstract submissions, in theory, methodology, as well as applications. Abstracts may describe completed research or work-in-progress. While the presenting author need not be the first author of the work, we encourage authors to highlight the contribution of women — particularly the presenting author — in the abstract.
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Authors of accepted abstracts will be asked to present their work in a poster session. A few authors will be selected to give 15 minute oral presentations. Submissions will be peer-reviewed in a double-blind setting. Authors will be automatically added to the reviewer pool and asked to review. Student and post-doc authors who review for WiML will be eligible for travel awards.
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Submission page: WiML 2018 CMT
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Style guidelines:
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Abstracts must not include identifying information
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Abstracts must be no more than 1 page (including any references, tables, and figures) submitted as a PDF in NIPS format.
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Upload the PDF, do not paste in the abstract box.
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Do not include any supplementary files with your submission.
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Content guidelines:
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Your abstract should stand alone, without linking to a longer paper or supplement.
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You should convey motivation and give some technical details of the approach used.
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While we appreciate that space is limited, some experimental results are likely to improve reviewers’ opinions of your paper.
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Acceptance criteria:
All accepted papers must be presented by the submitting author, or another author who identifies primarily as a woman or nonbinary. Abstracts will be reviewed by at least two reviewers plus an area chair, who will use the following criteria:
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Is this paper appropriate for WiML? I.e. Does it describe original research in Machine Learning or related fields?
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Does the abstract describe work that is novel and/or an interesting application?
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Does the abstract adequately convey the material that will be presented?
Examples of accepted abstracts from previous years. Due to the volume of submissions anticipated, we are unable to review any submitted materials besides the requested abstract.
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Travel Scholarships
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Travel Awards are available for presenting authors only. To qualify, the author must be a student or postdoc, their abstract must be accepted, and they must volunteer to serve as a reviewer for WiML. The amount of the travel award varies by the author’s geographical location and the total amount of funding WiML receives from our sponsors. In the past awards ranging from $300-$900 have been granted. All travel grants are administered as refunds and no funding is allocated before the conference.
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Area Chairs
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If you are interested in being an area chair, please email wiml2018@wimlworkshop.org with subject line “Area Chair for WiML 2018”. The role of area chairs is to evaluate the reviews, write a final meta-review and suggest acceptance/reject decisions for each abstract. We expect each area chair to be responsible for 10 short abstracts with each abstract having a maximum word limit of 500 words.
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Organizers
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Audrey Durand (McGill University)
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Aude Hofleitner (Facebook)
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Nyalleng Moorosi (CSIR)
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Sarah Poole (Stanford University)
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Amy Zhang (McGill University / Facebook AI Research)