CMMRS in Saarbrucken, Germany for pre-doctoral researchers

In late July, 2025 I attended the Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School in Computer Science (CMMRS) in Saarbrucken, Germany. We had group panel discussions that were helpful because we had the opportunity to meet current researchers and understand their PhD journey and research experience from their perspective. We also considered the differences between PhD programs in Europe and North America as well as academic versus industrial career paths, providing perspectives on future career options.

We also had poster presentations where we got to meet a couple of PhD students as well as postdocs working on interesting areas of research in computer science from Cornell University, University of Maryland and the Max-Planck software engineering institute.

Here is a photo I took after the poster presentations.

We also had lectures on different topics in computer science focused on state-of-the-art research. I was particularly interested in lectures on computer vision, high-performance computing, and computer architecture. A standout highlight was Dr. Abhinav Shrivastava’s talk, which looked at research from the perspective of different PhD students and illustrated how their outcomes intersect across multiple fields in computer vision. It was interesting to see how the insights of others across research groups could apply to broader, related concepts.

For a good program summary, Shreya Kochar wrote a detailed blog post about this: 

What’s CMMRS?

It is an annual research school for undergraduate or Master’s students with a strong academic record in an accredited full-time program in computer science, computer engineering, or a closely related discipline. Intended to demystify PhD life and  show students what a PhD is not and why they should consider a PhD and encourage pursuit of advanced research.

Bonus photo of me in front of some flags wearing attire from Ghana.

Find information about the program on their website