Last week MPI-SWS hosted the 10th annual Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School (CMMRS). This one-week school is designed to give undergraduate and Masters students from around the world a quick taste of what it is like to be a computer scientist. The school provides in-depth lectures on selected, state-of-the-art research topics and the opportunity to interact with leading academic and industry researchers, as well as current graduate students. The school also includes broader information sessions on pursuing a doctorate and on life as a computer scientist, thus providing students a head start for their research careers.

This year's school welcomed 91 pre-doctoral students from 31 countries. Students heard lectures from leading faculty at Cornell University, University of Maryland, and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems.

The informal feedback from attendees and guests this year was overwhelmingly positive. A few things we heard this week (paraphrasing, but only slightly):

• "I came in unsure about research. I'm leaving with three project ideas and someone else's email address to discuss them with."
• "I've never met so many brilliant people from so many time zones who all somehow agree that 11pm is a perfectly reasonable time to keep debating an open problem."

In addition to the scientific program (which included lectures, mentoring sessions, and small networking sessions), the school's program included several fun social events, where students bonded and networked with other like-minded peers.

More information can be found on the CMMRS website.

The Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School 2026 https://cmmrs.mpi-sws.org

August 3–7, 2026 Saarbruecken, Germany

Applications are requested from undergraduate students or Master’s students in computer and information science, computer engineering, or a related discipline to the 10th annual Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School.

The small, select group of attendees will be exposed to state-of-the-art research in computer science, have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with internationally leading scientists from three of the foremost academic institutions in research and higher learning in the US and in Europe, and network with like-minded students. They will get a sense of what it is like to pursue an academic or an industrial research career in computer science and have a head start when applying for graduate school.

For full consideration, applications should be received by February 14, 2026 AOE. Travel and accommodation will be covered for accepted students. Further information about the school and how to apply can be found at https://cmmrs.mpi-sws.org

Outstanding undergraduate and Masters students are invited to apply to the 9th annual Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School. Applications are requested from students in computer and information science, computer engineering, or a related discipline.  The 9th edition of this annual series of week-long schools will focus on emerging research trends in computer science.

The small, select group of attendees will be exposed to state-of-the-art research in computer science, have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with internationally leading scientists from three of the foremost academic institutions in research and higher learning in the US and in Europe, and network with like-minded students. They will get a sense of what it is like to pursue an academic or an industrial research career in computer science and have a head start when applying for graduate school.

For full consideration, applications should be received by February 15, 2025 AOE. Travel and accommodation will be covered for accepted students.

Further information about the school and how to apply can be found at https://cmmrs.mpi-sws.org

Last week MPI-SWS hosted the 3rd annual Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School (CMMRS). This one-week school is designed to give undergraduate and Masters students from around the world a quick taste of what it is like to be a computer scientist! The school provides in-depth lectures on selected, state-of-the-art research topics and the opportunity to interact with leading academic and industry researchers, as well as current graduate students. The school also includes broader information sessions on pursuing a doctorate and on life as a computer scientist, thus providing students a head start for their research careers.

This year's school welcomed 75 pre-doctoral students from 22 countries. Students heard lectures from some of the top researchers in CS:

• Leilani Battle, University of Maryland, Introduction to Data Visualization
• Dave Levin, University of Maryland, Measuring and Improving the Web’s Public Key Infrastructure
• Rupak Majumdar, MPI-SWS, Random Testing with Theoretical Guarantees
• Adrian Sampson, Cornell University, Designing Programming Languages for Heterogeneous Hardware
• Fred Schneider, Cornell University, Isolation and Flow of Information
• Adish Singla, MPI-SWS, Machine Teaching

The informal feedback from attendees and guests this year was overwhelmingly positive.

In addition to the scientific program, the school's program included several fun social events, where students bonded and networked with other like-minded peers.

The school was generously sponsored by the NSF, the Max Planck Society, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, and Nokia Bell Labs.

More information can be found on the CMMRS 2019 website.

For the second year in a row, the MPIs for Informatics and Software Systems jointly participated in the annual Girls' Day. We welcomed 14 school-aged girls to our institute, and showed them what computer science research is all about. We spent an exciting morning with hands-on computer science puzzles, soldered cool blinking hearts, and live-edited videos. The winners of our computer science quiz got to take home 3D dragons, printed on our own 3D printers.

Outstanding undergraduate and Masters students are invited to learn about world-class research in security and privacy, social systems, distributed systems, machine learning, programming languages, and verification. Leading researchers will engage with attendees in their areas of expertise: the curriculum will include lectures, projects, and interaction with faculty from participating institutions.

Attendees will be exposed to state-of-the-art research in computer science, have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with internationally leading scientists from three of the foremost academic institutions in research and higher learning in the US and in Europe, and network with like-minded students. They will get a sense of what it is like to pursue an academic or industrial research career in computer science and have a head start when applying for graduate school.

Applications are due by February 7, 2018. Travel and accommodation will be covered for accepted students.

More info can be found on the CMMRS website.

MPI-INF and MPI-SWS jointly participated in Girl's Day this year.

The Max Planck Institutes for Informatics and Software Systems pursue basic research in many areas of computer science. But what exactly is computer science? And what does a day in the life of a scientist look like in computer science? We addressed these questions by way of hands-on examples and demonstrated, for instance, how a computer learns, how the car navigation system knows how to get from A to B, and also how one doesn’t always need a computer for doing computer science. Along the way, the school girls were able to ask our students and researchers all sorts of questions about what it is like to work in research.

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Die Max-Planck Institute für Informatik und Software Systeme betreiben Grundlagenforschung in vielen Bereichen der Informatik. Aber was genau ist Informatik? Und wie sieht ein Tag im Leben einer Wissenschaftlerin in der Informatik aus? Genau dies haben wir anhand von Beispielen zum Anfassen und Ausprobieren gezeigt und dabei z.B. illustriert, wie ein Computer lernt, wie das Navi weiß wie man von A nach B kommt, und auch dass man für Informatik nicht immer einen Computer braucht. Nebenbei hatten die Schülerinnen die Gelegenheit unseren StudentInnen, DoktorandInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen allerlei Fragen zu stellen, wie es denn ist in der Forschung zu arbeiten.

Outstanding undergraduate and Masters students are invited to learn about world-class research in security and privacy, social systems, distributed systems, machine learning, programming languages, and verification. Leading researchers will engage with attendees in their areas of expertise: the curriculum will include lectures, projects, and interaction with faculty from participating institutions.

Attendees will be exposed to state-of-the-art research in computer science, have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with internationally leading scientists from three of the foremost academic institutions in research and higher learning in the US and in Europe, and network with like-minded students. They will get a sense of what it is like to pursue an academic or industrial research career in computer science and have a head start when applying for graduate school.

Applications are due by February 7, 2017. Travel and accommodation will be covered for accepted students.

More info can be found on the CMMRS website.