Ph.D. Council - December meeting

1. Participants
Stefano Bonetti
Baki Cakici
Natalja Nikitina
Dina Pamela Gonzalez Sanchez
Olof Götberg
Magnus Hårdensson Berntsen
Liu Pei


2. Role definitions for the Ph.D. Council 2010
After a unanimous vote by the participant of the Council meeting, the roles for the Ph.D. Council year 2010 are the following:

President: Magnus Hårdensson Berntsen
Vice-president: Natalja Nikitina
Treasurer: Olof Götberg
Secretary: Baki Cakici

3. Planning for 2o10
Despite some accomplishments this year, there are still several issues where the situation for the Ph.D. students needs to be improved. Here is a list of such issues where the Ph.D. Council plans to be active during the next year:

a) check that the promises about the funding of Ph.D. students are kept;
b) in particular, check the details of the funding of CSC and HEC scholars;
c) better organization of the Ph.D. courses;
d) obtain the funding of the Ph.D. Council, as promised by the ICT school, and organize activities to use that money (orientation day, workshops, social events);
e) solve eventual problem with the mailing list for ICT Ph.D. students;
f) communicate and guide (ex-)DSV Ph.D. students after the reorganization;
g) implement the electronic vote for the next ICT Ph.D. Council elections;
h) get the blog on ICT school domain.

4. Next meeting
Next meeting is planned on January 13, 2010, at 16:00, in Forum. (Room to be announced.)

Everyone is welcome to join!

Election results

The final results of the election for the Ph.D. Council 2010 are the following:

• Hårdensson Berntsen, Magnus, 15 votes
  
• Nikitina, Natalja, 14 votes
  
• Götberg, Olof, 12 votes
  
• Cakici, Baki, 9 votes
• Pei, Liu, 8 votes
• Gonzalez Sanchez, Dina Pamela, 7 votes

Total number of participants at elections: 19.
Total number of valid ballots: 19.
Total number of votes: 65 (maximum of 4 votes per ballot).


The elected members of the ICT Ph.D. Council 2010 are: Hårdensson Berntsen, Magnus; Nikitina, Natalja; Götberg, Olof; Cakici, Baki.

The four posts, President, vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary will be assigned at the next Ph.D. Council meeting.

ICT Ph.D. Council November Meeting

Participants:

Baki Cakici - DSV
Constantinos Giannoulis - DSV
Dina Pamela Gonzalez Sanchez - Communication Systems
Magnus Hårdensson Berntsen - Material Physics
Natalja Nikitina - DSV
Liu Pei - Electronic Systems
Stefano Bonetti - Material Physics


Elections

Elections for the Ph.D. Council 2010 will take place on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. The room for the election will be announced later on this blog.

Four (4) elected members will be chosen for the role of President, vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary of the Council. The function of the different roles are explained in the Constitution of the Ph.D. Council, that will soon appear on this blog.

All Ph.D. Students have the right to vote and to be eligible candidates. Last day to register as a candidate is Friday, November 27, 2009. Simply add your name in a comment to this post.

At present, the candidates are (in alphabetical order):

• Cakici, Baki
• Gonzalez Sanchez, Dina Pamela
• Götberg, Olof
  
• Hårdensson Berntsen, Magnus
• Nikitina, Natalja
  
• Pei, Liu

The sessions of the Ph.D. Council will always be open to non-elected members.

PhD Orientation Day 2009

Dear fellow Ph.D. Students,
thank you very much for such a good Ph.D. Orientation Day!

The slides from the meeting are now available as a .pdf file on this blog. You find them here:
Ph D Orientation Day 2009

View more documents from Cωνσtantίnoς .

Ph.D. Orientation day - October 23, 2009

Dear fellow ICT Ph.D. student!
The time for the Ph.D. Orientation Day has arrived!

When: Friday, October 23, 2009.
Where: Sal B, Forum
Hosted by the ICT Ph.D. Student Council

Program:
10:00–10:30 Welcome message by the Dean of graduate studies, and
vice-Dean of the ICT school, Carl Gustaf Jansson. (Sal B)
10:30–12:00 Welcome by the ICT Ph.D. Student Council. (Sal B)
12:00–13:00 Lunch (Forum restaurant)
13:00–14:30 Campus tour
14:30–15:30 Fika (Forum)
Later in the evening: mingle downtown

Lunch is offered by the school to Ph.D. students registered up to one year ago (i.e. the second semester of 2008).

Why should you attend the Ph.D Orientation Day:

• We will discuss your rights and duties as a Ph.D. student.
• We will describe the school organization and structure together with the Dean of graduate studies.
• We will introduce the ICT Ph.D. Student Council
• We will answer your questions regarding all aspects of Ph.D. Student life and work at ICT.
  

All the above can be extremely useful to you during your Ph.D. studies, as it was for us. So, join the meeting, and bring your colleagues with you!

See you then!

The ICT Ph.D. Student Council

ICT Ph.D. Council October Meeting

Participants:

Stefano Bonetti - MP
Constantinos Giannoulis - SYSLAB/DSV
Dina Pamela Gonzalez Sanchez - COS
Magnus Hårdensson Berntsen - MP
Zhechao Wang - SC

Previous points:

a) Make final corrections to the Welcome document, and create .pdf. (Magnus)
Done
b) Check Calle Jansson availability for Ph.D. Orientation Day: October 7 or 23 (Stefano)
October 23
c) Book a room for the Orientation Day (Constantinos)
Sal B, October 23, 09:00-12:00
d) Check possibility of getting the lunch and the fika paid by the school (Stefano)
Preliminary positive response (to be confirmed)
e) Check possibility of getting folders, pens and printouts from the school (Stefano)
Waiting for response
f) Check possibility of Ph.D. student pub on Friday, October 23 (Stefano)
Have to ask
g) Check opening Nymble on friday 23 (Magnus)
Have to ask

Updated action items

• provide comments on the ICT structure and constitution document by Monday, Oct. 12th. (Constantinos will put it together and make it available)
  
• provide comments on the Orientation day announcement (both email and blogpost) by tomorrow morning. (Stefano will send it out and all of us will circulate the news)
• presentation for the orientation day will be available for comments (in draft mode) after Monday, Oct. 12th.
• call the Sophia for pen, folders and printouts. (Stefano)
• regarding the student pub and beer after the orientation day we'll head to the city. Place to be decided.
• next meeting is at Tuesday Oct- 20th at 13:30 at DSV, Forum. Things to be finalized: define governing body and presentations, folders and printouts (worst case print it ourselves), lunch and fika (worst case scenario on each student's expense), make the last announcement on the 21st.
  

Ph.D. Student Council - September extra - meeting

1. Participants
Stefano Bonetti - MP
Constantinos Giannoulis - SYSLAB/DSV
Dina Pamela Gonzalez Sanchez - COS
Magnus Hårdensson Berntsen - MP
Zhechao Wang - SC

2. Action items before the Ph.D. orientation day
a) Make final corrections to the Welcome document, and create .pdf. (Magnus)
Done
b) Check Calle Jansson availability for Ph.D. Orientation Day: October 7 or 23 (Stefano)
October 23
c) Book a room for the Orientation Day (Constantinos)
Sal B, October 23, 09:00-12:00
d) Check possibility of getting the lunch and the fika paid by the school (Stefano)
Preliminary positive response (to be confirmed)
e) Check possibility of getting folders, pens and printouts from the school (Stefano)
Waiting for response
f) Check possibility of Ph.D. student pub on Friday, October 23 (Stefano)
Have to ask
g) Check opening Nymble on friday 23 (Magnus)
Have to ask

5. Next meeting
Next meeting is planned on October 5, 2009, at 15:00, in Electrum.

Everyone is welcome to join. As already said, we would like to have at least one Ph.D. Student from each Activity Base. At the moment we have people from COS (Communication Systems), ISS/DSV (Information and Software Systems), MP (Materials Physics), and SC (Semiconductor Devices). We still miss someone from ECS (Embedded Electronic and Computer Systems) and OP (Optics and Photonics)

Ph.D. Student Council - September meeting

1. Participants
Stefano Bonetti - MP
Constantinos Giannoulis - SYSLAB/DSV
Dina Pamela Gonzalez Sanchez - COS
Magnus Hårdensson Berntsen - MP
Zhechao Wang - SC


2. Presentation of the Ph.D. orientation day
Magnus, Pamela and Zhechao presented the documents they prepared. These papers will be distributed at the Ph.D. orientation day. They are all available for editing as Shared Google Documents.

Suggested date for the meeting: October, 7 or October, 23. Final decision to be taken given the availability of Calle Jansson, vice-dean and responsible of Graduate Education at the ICT school.

The proposed program is the following:
10:00 - 11:30 Welcome to Ph.D. students from Ph.D. students
11:30 - 12:00 Welcome to Ph.D. students from Calle Jansson
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 14:30 Campus Tour
14:30 - 16:00 Fika and social activities


3. Presentation of the draft of the constitution of Ph.D. Council
Stefano and Constantinos presented the draft of the constitution of the Ph.D. Council. Main objective of this document is to set some simple rules on how and when to elect the Ph.D. Council members .


4. Action items.
a) Collect and upload on Google Docs the latest version of the welcome documents. (Magnus)

b) Contact Calle Jansson for availability (Stefano)

c) Contact School administration on possibility of getting KTH signed folders and pens, to be delivered at the orientation day. (Stefano)

d) Create a "Contact list" for the people in the administration which are involved with Ph.D. students issues. (Stefano)

e) Finalize the Ph.D. Council constitution. (Constantinos, Stefano)


5. Next meeting
Next meeting is planned on September 14, 2009, at 13:30, in Forum. Everyone is welcome to join. As already said, we would like to have at least one Ph.D. Student from each Activity Base. At the moment we have people from COS (Communication Systems), ISS/DSV (Information and Software Systems), MP (Materials Physics), and SC (Semiconductor Devices). We still miss someone from ECS (Embedded Electronic and Computer Systems) and OP (Optics and Photonics)

Ph.D. Student Council - June meeting

1. Participants
Stefano Bonetti - MP
Constantinos Giannoulis - SYSLAB/DSV
Christian Valenzuela Köhnenkamp - MP
Zhechao Wang - SC

2. Brief summary of Ph.D. students rights
We went briefly through the final draft of the document and the table jointly written together with the Ph.D. Student Chapter. The aim of these documents (that will be formatted and printed out) is to give all newly employed Ph.D. Students an overview of their rights and a first, quick, answer to the most common questions and problems. Draft of these documents will be available on this blog.

3. Report on FU committee and School board meetings.
The last week of May and the first of June, I attended the meetings of the Graduate Education Committee (FU - forskarutbilding) and of the ICT school board. The meeting with the FU committee had the aim to give an overview of the new organization of the school. Most of the informations were on the document I sent out in May, and which will be available on the blog as well. The ICT school board meeting was also an introduction to the school organization, since it was the first with the new board.

4. Planning of the Ph.D. Student Council actions.
Every member of the Ph.D. Council is welcome to contribute to the actions we decide to take. We identify an "action leader" only for organizational reasons.

a) Write down a constitution for the Ph.D. Council and an Organizational Chart of the ICT school. (Shared Google documents, Constantinos/Stefano responsible)

b) Maintenance of the blog. (Stefano/Constantinos)

c) Planning of the orientation day for Ph.D. students, that should take place at the beginning of October. (Shared Google document, Magnus, Zhechao, Pamela responsible)

d) Feedback to the FU committee about the type of information on Ph.D. studies that should be present on the school homepage. Other universities homepage can be a good source of inspiration. (Shared Google document, Christian responsible)

e) Problems to be brought at the school board level. (Stefano)

5. Next meeting
Next meeting is planned on September 2, 2009, at 13:30. Everyone is welcome to join. As already said, we would like to have at least one Ph.D. Student from each Activity Base (the newest official name, the previous was Research Group). At the moment we have people from COS (Communication Systems), ISS/DSV (Information and Software Systems), MP (Materials Physics), and SC (Semiconductor Devices). We still miss someone from ECS(Embedded Electronic and Computer Systems) and OP (Optics and Photonics)

Kista Science Seminar: Dark matter, Dark Energy and Black Holes

The ICT School recently started a set of seminars of general scientific interest, to be held ideally the last Friday of each month. The first one was given by the head of Ericsson research, showing the strategy of the company for the coming year. The second one was given by the director of the construction of the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Sweden. The third one is scheduled on Friday, May 29. You can find more information here:

http://www.kth.se/ict/kalender/seminar/1.37985

All Ph.D. students are of course very welcome to join, and you will be offered coffee and pastries before the seminar. We think that there are many good aspects with this event. First, you get to hear what is going on at the edge of the research world in different fields, which are not yours. Usually the speakers are very good delivers, so that you can actually relax and enjoy the talk. Second, the idea of the seminars is very popular in many other universities, but not so much here (yet). We think that having seminaries is a very positive thing, and if you think the same, please come and show that we, Ph.D. students, appreciate the initiative. Third, but not less important, we can use that moment to get to know each other.

Therefore, join the Kista Science Seminars!

Hello world!

We are ready to go!

PhD Student rights' table

[click on the image for full details]