Materials
Practical notes for people doing research with me — how we work, not what we work on.
For new students, How to Write a Weekly Report Update
The slide-deck template every student uses to report each week.
Four sections: what was done last week, five papers read with a fixed per-paper checklist, how that reading moves the gap / novelty / contribution / solution of our own work, and next week's todos.
PhD Graduation Requirements
What it takes to graduate from my group at UCL.
The UCL PhD is four years. Four accepted combinations, from 3 SE CCF-A papers (ICSE / ASE / FSE / ISSTA / TSE / TOSEM, research track) down to 4 AI top-tier papers (ICML / ICLR / NeurIPS / ACL Main / CVPR, etc.) — and a paper only counts if the student is first author and I am last and corresponding author.
PhD Leave and Internships
Time off, and going on internships.
28 days of annual leave a year with no work expected, plus two extra weeks of remote-work flexibility — but barring humanitarian reasons, no sudden, short-notice leave right before a deadline. Internships are encouraged as long as you stay on track, subject to supervisor sign-off on the dates and the university's off-campus approval.
Group Rules
The few things everyone in the group is expected to do.
Meetings: come prepared with slides built from the weekly report template, and no last-minute cancellations — having no update is not a reason to cancel, and if you really cannot attend, tell everyone invited at least a day ahead (illness excepted). Be in the lab at least twice a week. And before spending API credits, get a budget proposal approved — which models, how much, which experiments, and whether they are final. Everyone gives a talk on their progress every three months, paper or no paper.