PLMW@SPLASHSPLASH 2022

"PLMW changed my life and my career trajectory. I honestly applied to POPL on a whim one year because I was working a low-wage job in Los Angeles (where POPL was being held) and being a PhD student volunteer was the only way I could afford to attend. ACM conferences can be expensive. It was only after volunteering at that conference and talking to Ranjit Jhala that I had it in my head that I might pursue a PhD. But in what, and how? And no one I work with has a PhD or gone to grad school for Computer Science, much less PL. This is where PLMW came in. Almost immediately, I met someone who had not only travelled a similar path, but openly engaged with me, and others who told me to follow up with them for help and mentorship applying to schools. Others I met even encouraged me to submit a paper or collaborate on a research paper with them. I had never written a single research paper before. I went from Pallet Jacks and helping 53 foot trucks back into a facility, hearing the sound of welding and machining all day, while sitting at a computer trying out small programmes in LISP, to being a fully-funded PhD student within a year. I owe a lot of that to PLMW."
— Krystal Maughan, PhD student, University of Vermont

"I went to my first PLMW in 2012, which was at a time where I had not really thought much about applying for PhD programs. PLMW's program taught me tons of things about research that I did not know, and was the first time I seriously considered an academic career. I still think back to some of the advice I got there whenever I write a paper or prepare a presentation. More importantly, participating in PLMW meant I was also there for one of the main conferences on Programming Languages and thus got to see the world's experts in the field present and discuss their work. That was slightly scary, but it turns out that people usually love it when somebody shares their interests. Lastly, but possibly most importantly, the people I met there for the first time became the friendly faces I already knew whenever I went to a conference afterward.”
— Fabian Muehlboeck, post-doctoral researcher, Institute of Science and Technology Austria

"I attended my first PLMW in 2017, having previously taken one programming languages course. I definitely did not understand most of the technical talks given at PLMW, and that's okay. My experience at PLMW greatly influenced my path since then. I got great advice for how to write papers and talks from Derek Dreyer's presentation, which has helped me ever since. I also applied to graduate school with a special interest in compiler correctness because of Amal Ahmed's talk during this same PLMW. I am currently starting my second year of my PhD program researching type preserving compilation because of PLMW. I also made wonderful friends who I still keep in touch with. ”
— Paulette Koronkevich, PhD student, University of British Columbia

“Big PL conferences were very intimidating to me, and PLMW takes the edge off that a lot. Having a community willing to teach you soft and technical skills is welcoming and helped me feel part of the fold. Besides that the lessons were very useful, PLMW has been very influential in how I write papers.”
— Simon Cooksey, post-doctoral researcher, University of Kent

"Coming from industry, PLMW made the world of PL research feel much more accessible than it had prior to my attendance. Even though it was remote, I felt I had the opportunity to engage with researchers and other prospective graduate students to get a sense of what PL research is like on a day-to-day basis. It also gave me perspective on the types of career tracks available after graduate school and how people find those opportunities. While I ended up choosing to stay in industry, PLMW helped me feel comfortable with that decision while also having a better sense of how to bring academic ideas into industry. ”
— Rory Sawyer, software engineer