Luana Martins
- PHD Student
Federal University of Bahia
Attended 44th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2022)
2022, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Attending the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2022) was my first in-person international conference as the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have changed how scientific conferences occurred in the last two-three years. Although the conference was held in-person, we must wear a mask to ensure the safety and well-being of the attendants. That’s why I am still wearing a mask in my photo!
Talking about the conference, ICSE 2022 was full of activities. I was amazed by the great effort of the ICSE community in preparing a conference with oral and poster presentations, keynote talks, birds of feathers sessions, mentoring sessions, and networking events in a hybrid format (virtual and in-person conference) for the first time.
During the virtual conference, I got to attend the Student Mentoring Workshop, where I met three mentors that are experts in my research area (Juergen Cito – TU Wien and Meta, Saba Alimadadi – Simon Fraser University, and Baishakhi Ray – Columbia University). Through the support given by ACM-W, I was able to attend the in-person conference in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, where I met another mentor of my choice (Andy Zaidman – TU Delft). In both virtual and in-person conferences, I attended several presentations and listened to talks from distinguished professors, researchers, and practitioners on Software Testing and Machine Learning with/for Software Engineering. The feedback I received in the mentoring sessions aligned with the presentations and talks provided me with new insights and contributions to my research. I could understand the state-of-the-art ideas and learn more about the Machine Learning techniques that I aim to apply in my research. The mentors suggested points of improvement and discussed the outputs of my research project. As an immediate result, I have found potential collaborators to work with and plan to submit at least one paper to the ICSE 2023 technical track.
In addition, I also attended many networking events. The first one was a social event to meet other students during a very fun itinerary guided by Jonathan Bell (sponsored by CMU’s Institute for Software Research, and planned by Rohan Padhye) through Pittsburgh. Other events included the newcomers reception, where I met other ICSE first-time attendants through five-minute conversations and a karaoke session. So much fun!
I would like to thank ACM-W for giving me this valuable opportunity. I had the chance to share knowledge and cultural experiences with other researchers from around the world and strengthen my networking. It was a truly memorable experience and I look forward to more learning experiences in the future.