By Lorenzo Loconte
4 January 2024
I am a PhD student researching Machine Learning at the University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics. This year, I was delighted to hear the news that one of my papers had been accepted as an oral presentation at the 37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023) in New Orleans. Attending the conference has been an enriching experience, as it not only gave me the opportunity of presenting my work, but also allowed me to meet other researchers and collaborators.
About the conference
NeurIPS is a major international conference covering research advances in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. As such, it was the perfect venue for me to submit my work. In my research area, having a paper accepted at NeurIPS is a remarkable achievement, as it is currently the largest conference in my field in terms of attendees and submitted papers. The program of the conference was thrilling, as it included many invited talks, poster sessions and workshops, as well as the possibility of interacting with the industrial sector.
Presenting my research
Given the relevance of the conference to my research field, I was flattered by the idea of presenting my paper in a talk. This year, oral presentations account for about 0.6% of valid paper submissions, which makes presenting my research at the conference an important milestone. As a PhD student, I could not miss this opportunity in my early-stage career.
During the conference, I gave a talk about my work and exhibited it at the poster sessions (see the photo above). This experience also allowed me to be exposed to a high number of research topics and fresh ideas.
Acknowledgments
As a PhD student, seeking funding can be daunting sometimes, and funding initiatives are essential. I am very grateful to the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) for supporting me financially on this journey.