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SPS Mentors for ME-UYR Program - Details Page
>> View the ME-UYR Program Call for Mentors Announcement
>> View the ME-UYR Program Call for Project Proposals
The Mentoring Experiences for Underrepresented Young Researchers (ME-UYR) is a new program funded by IEEE SPS that started in 2021 and in 2023 will launch its second edition. ME-UYR provides mentoring experiences in the form of a 9-month collaboration for young researchers from underrepresented groups together with an established researcher in signal processing from a different institute, and typically another country.
The number of non-male researchers in signal processing within the IEEE community is around 10%. The number of non-male is higher at the PhD student/graduate level but quickly drops off for higher positions. The numbers for other underrepresented minorities and other technical areas within signal processing are similar or even worse. To increase diversity in signal processing areas, in general, at all levels, steps need to be taken. This initiative focuses on increasing diversity and retaining researchers from minority groups for the generality of signal processing areas.
The goal of ME-UYR is to increase (gender, underrepresented minority groups, and geographical) diversity in signal processing in general by attracting and retaining more young non-male researchers and researchers from other underrepresented minority groups (at the undergraduate and graduate level) in signal processing areas. All ME-UYR Program participants are required to be IEEE Signal Processing Society members of student or graduate student membership grade levels.
Young researchers from underrepresented minorities (self-identified) including gender, geographical, ethnical, and others, who are in the early stages of academic life (i.e., undergraduate and graduate students), who are members of the Signal Processing Society are eligible to participate in the program.
The mentor is an established researcher who acts as the advisor of the young researcher for the duration of the project. The advisor provides the student with guidance, as well as access to resources (including computational ones), datasets, and so on depending on the needs of the project. The advisor supervises the project and links the student to other students/researchers in their lab to further increase the student’s network and knowledge.
The young researchers and mentors are expected to work in cooperation for the duration of the program (about 9 months). The mentor and young researcher are expected to meet (online) periodically (preferably weekly or every two weeks) to advance the project.
Within the assigned funding amount for each project the student can plan a visit to the mentor’s laboratory and/or attendance to an SPS flagship conference (ICASSP or ICIP) to attend the ME-UYR event. While the visit to the mentor’s laboratory should happen within the duration of the project, the attendance at the conference can happen in the following year.
At the end of the project, a publication co-authored by the mentor and the young researcher is expected. There shall be a special poster session during ICASSP 2025 for the outputs of the ME-UYR program, to which the publication can be submitted. In the case the submission to the special session is not accepted by the conference technical committee, the output of the project can still be presented during ICASSP 2025 (and tentatively at ICIP 2025) in a parallel event for the ME-UYR current and past participants.
Students with successfully published papers related to their projects will be invited to present their work to other SPS students via local chapters to increase the visibility of their work and of the program. The steering committee together with the SPS Regional Directors will assist in the connection with the local chapters.
The project proposals should be written by the young research candidates and their selected mentors, with a maximum of two pages. The proposal includes:
The proposals received will be evaluated by the ME-UYR steering committee. The evaluation criteria include:
Date: Monday, September 18, 2023
Time: 11:00 AM | (UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) | 1 hr 30 mins
Meeting number (access code): 2632 329 7918
Meeting password: CpFeWAmB693
Meeting Link: Link for Webex and access to Global Call-in Numbers:
Call for Mentors | 1 July - 15 September 2023 |
Call for Project Proposals | 1 August - 31 October 2023 |
Online Connecting Event | 18 September 2023 (tentative) |
Proposal Evaluation Results | 17 November 2023 |
Start of the Projects | Post 19 November 2023 |
ICASSP ME-UYR Event | 14 April 2024 (tentative) |
Paper submission for the ICASSP 2025 ME-UYR Special Session | September 2024 (tentative) |
In case of questions, please contact the ME-UYR steering committee using the following e-mail address: sp-me-uyr@listserv.ieee.org.