Collaborating with ALPhA
ALPhA is a research group led by co-PIs Michelle Kuchera and Raghu Ramanujan at Davidson College. We are applied machine learning (ML) researchers who are excited about addressing computational challenges in Physics.
Whether you're a Davidson student or an external researcher, here's how you can get involved and what to expect from collaboration.
Opportunities for Davidson Students
Davidson students can engage with ALPhA through:
- Paid Fellowships - these are typically summer positions supported by internal or external grants. Limited funds may be available for academic year positions.
- Independent Study Courses – these are courses offered in Physics (PHY) and Computer Science (CSC) with relevant prerequisites for credit during the semester. This is a course that would be one of a student's four courses for the semester; it can be counted towards graduation credits (and in some cases, towards major credit in CSC).
Student researchers are expected to:
- work 40 hours per week (for summer fellows) or 12 hours per week (for independent studies),
- participate in weekly group meetings and meetings with collaborators as necessary,
- be independent, proactive, communicative and curious.
Since we receive much more interest in ALPhA positions every year than we can accommodate, students interested in working with us are required to complete an application. We welcome interest from all students who are curious about the intersection of AI and science and have some basic background in computer science or physics.
We are firm believers that all student work should be compensated. Since our current mechanisms do not allow us to pay or grant credit to those not enrolled at Davidson, we do not work with high-school students or others on a voluntary basis.
Collaborating with ALPhA
We are enthusiastic about collaborations that involve machine learning with physics applications. If you're a physics researcher interested in partnering with us, we invite you to contact Michelle or Raghu to discuss your project. Collaborators are welcome to join our weekly group meetings via Zoom, whether to present your own work or listen in on our ongoing work. Collaborators are also welcome to join our Slack workspace for asynchronous communication and updates.
Publication & Authorship Expectations
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Co-PIs Authorship
For ML-based publications resulting from collaborations, Michelle and Raghu expect to be included as co-authors. For physics papers using ALPhA-developed code, a citation to our ML paper is sufficient, unless the ML work is unpublished -- in which case, co-authorship is expected.
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Student Researcher Contributions
Undergraduate researchers who contribute substantially to the main branch of an ALPhA code repository used in a publication should be included as co-authors.