Prospective Students

Do you want to do your Master’s or PhD with me?¹

You will first need to apply to and be accepted by the University of Victoria. If you are applying for an NSERC or equivalent scholarship/fellowship, please feel free to contact me first. Note that visa requirements have eased (finally). As a visa applicant you will need to show approximately $30,000 CAD of funding support. Typically, not all of this will come from my research grants.

Your interests and skills should overlap with what I do. For more on that, see my research page, or my blog, or Google Scholar. In general, if you care about software, putting software together, making sure software does what we want, we can probably sort something out. If you simply have software engineering job experience, that is not enough to motivate the research component. In particular, a lot of projects involve close interaction with other humans, so skill in spoken English and group settings with impromptu conversation are essential. Work as a Product Manager or Business Analyst is ideal for this type of research.

What will you get out of it? You will be trained in how to conduct research, how to write and communicate your ideas to others, including industry practitioners; you will write software; you will help push forward the boundaries of knowledge in software research. It’s an exciting time to be in research!

Email me:

• your CV;
• your GPA. If your previous degrees are from an institution outside of North America, you must meet UVic’s minimum GPA requirements (see the section titled Minimums from other countries);
• a paragraph explaining why you want me to be your supervisor and how you think you fit int
• a paragraph about you and your professional AND personal interests, including any programming or industry experience (if applicable); and
• if English is not your first language, please provide proof of English language proficiency (as per UVic’s admission requirements).

For potential MSc students: If you acquired research experience during your undergraduate degree, please tell me about it. Publications in respected conferences or international journals, an undergrad thesis, a Capstone project, an undergrad research assistant position or a directed studies project make you a stronger candidate.

For potential PhD students: Tell me about your previous graduate work and include PDFs of your thesis and your best and most recent publications. PhD applicants should have a strong background in computer science or software engineering research (or a related field).

Thank you for your interest in working with me. I receive many emails from prospective students and providing me with all of the requested information will help your email stand out!

Footnotes

1. Cribbed largely from the CHISEL group page