External Seminar

June 3, 12:30 – 1:30, Virtual

Video Recording (MP4)

Learning to Manage in Grad School for Sustainable Careers in Future

Dr. Tanzima Zerin Islam

Abstract:

Research activities in graduate school take front and center role for obvious reasons. However, learning to manage time, tasks, and stress is an equally important skill that often gets the least attention. Attaining success in professional careers often involve much more than just publishing papers. Handling several deadlines, collaborating effectively, and juggling responsibilities while making an impact is non-trivial. Especially in academia, tasks entail mentoring students, staff, teams, managing individual projects and funding portfolios, guiding the professional development of others, reviewing papers and proposals, grading, teaching, serving the community, all the while raising a family. The lack of a systematic approach to managing limited resources such as time and energy could cause burnout. In this talk, I will share my personal experiences and take away points gathered during the past few years of balancing research, teaching, service, and family responsibilities encountered while serving in all the roles mentioned above. I will talk about some tools and strategies I use to manage productivity while avoiding burnout. Developing a systematic approach now at grad school will serve you well in your academic careers and beyond.

Bio:

Tanzima Islam is a faculty at Texas State University. She earned her Ph.D. from Purdue University (DCSL group, ECE) in 2013 and was a postdoctoral scholar at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Before that, she received B. Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from Bangladesh. Broadly, her research interest lies in the intersection of machine learning and scalable and reliable HPC. Her research received prestigious awards, such as the R&D 100 award in 2019 and the Science and Technology Award at LLNL in 2014.  Besides enjoying teaching and research, she is committed to broadening the participation of students from diverse backgrounds into HPC. She organizes outreach and professional development activities as the co-founder of the first research and mentoring platform for female Computer Science and Engineering students in Bangladesh.