Christine Rizkallah

Academic in FM/PL, Diversity in academia (she/ they/ call-by-name; although I’d generally discourage treating humans as pure functions).

[Ilya Sergey @ilyasergey]

If you're a member of @sigplan, nominate your favourite paper from 2021-2023 editions of PLDI, POPL, OOPSLA, ICFP, ASPLOS, or PPoPP for SIGPLAN Research Highlights!

Nomination form: https://t.co/hnkIY32Dd7
Details: https://t.co/eANiyZ56fR

Deadline: 21 November 2024

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@AlexP_DownUnder Survive or flourish?

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

Vincent Jackson is giving their 1st talk at #ITP this Tue on our (w @tobycmurray) general #isabelle framework for verifying concurrent code. A generalisation of RGSep; inst. to several logics and models. Please attend & support them if you're at ITP.
https://t.co/IUnhRrrKAm

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@lzcarl Yeah, having chairs that set clear expectations about what’s acceptable and having a kindness pass to identify and revise offensive non-constructive feedback significant improved feedback at PL venues like POPL compared to some years back. Cultural change is not a hopeless case.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@kamatsu8 @starsandspirals @BloodClocktower @samreich Lovely game. There was a very solid scene in Sydney with a bunch of lovely people that I miss dearly! Glad the game made it that far!

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

An insightful talk about how to teach programmers maths and vice versa (Rust and Lean as examples). Good ideas on how to systematically analyse, improve, and evaluate improvements, that may be applicable to other domains.
Thanks @brendanzab for sharing!
https://t.co/f5ozGk2TDj

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@FelixK42 @tobycmurray I’m saying that a large portion is spent on ensuring the money flow continues by offering the higher-ups crazy high salaries and splurging on marketing expenses rather than using most of it to raise the quality of the education provided. Standard capitalism.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 I wish I had your optimism about this. Also happy to discuss intrinsic vs extrinsic motives sometime but that’s a bit orthogonal to why I don’t feel we are helping them get what they want. At least I feel I help when it comes to PhD supervision and mentoring if nothing else.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 I don’t feel our contribution has much to do with it. It seems like extortion to require them to pay that much if what they really want is a visa. If they are primarily here to learn, we must be doing such a bad job that most don’t show up despite this being their primary motive.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

I wish I could attend! If you’re in Sydney, here are some fun Tuesday evening plans!

[Andrej Bauer @andrejbauer]

If you'd like to know what this is, you're kindly invited to fly to Sydney and attend my #publiclecture “Zeros” on Tuesday, August 13, 2024 at 5:30pm at @SydMathInst, which is part of #NationalScienceWeek, see https://t.co/IPaiBEW7tz for details.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 So they’re hoping to live here and that’s why they studied here rather than because education being super exceptional here?

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 Empirical evidence mostly: observable behaviour (paying such high tuition while not showing up), observing the conditions of the system (ease of visas for HE vs difficulty of obtaining other visas), contrasting to elsewhere and from just talking to people. I’d love to be wrong.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 Twenty percent of the numbers that result in the fourth highest export is huge, but is your point that they are not getting what they’re paying for?

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 Maybe I’m slightly reflecting. I can’t imagine passion for a career driving me to do anything. It indeed doesn’t mean that’s true of everyone. Also if I were starving it’d be a damn good drive, but then again I wouldn’t be able to afford Australian tuition.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@tobycmurray @kamatsu8 Absolutely, I don’t think I am talking about passion as a virtue here nor blaming the students nor their parents. Rather it seems to me that the Australian HE sector is a front for overpriced visas. Hence I personally can’t be proud or guilt-free contributing to that.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@kamatsu8 @tobycmurray Absolutely!

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@kamatsu8 @tobycmurray I’d rather people follow their passion rather than try to optimise for jobs etc. But of course passion is contagious (to some extent - so long as those learning are at least open to it) and teaching together was a valuable experience to me providing a clear demonstration of that.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@kamatsu8 @tobycmurray Yeah my brain ignored that. I assumed it’s there cause that’s what we’re talking about now.

[Christine Rizkallah @c_rizkallah]

@kamatsu8 @tobycmurray But if it is status and prestige that they are after, maybe that’s sufficient motivation for some people to want to graduate (I doubt it is sufficient for deep learning but I’m not a social scientist, it could be).