EECS Alliance Roundup: 2023
EECS Department Head Asu Ozdaglar and CEO of Dropbox Drew Houston share a conversation on the rise of AI and the opportunities it presents for emerging engineers. Photo credit: Ryan McCarthy Founded in 2019, The EECS Alliance program connects industry leading companies with EECS students for internships, post graduate employment, networking, and collaborations. In 2023, it has grown to include over 30 organizations that have either joined the Alliance or participate in its flagship program, 6A. “It is especially exciting to see the Alliance grow to include companies from nearly all industries, which provide our students with more insight into different possible career paths,” said Mohammad Alizadeh, Associate Professor and the Department of EECS’s Industry Officer.
To provide organizations more opportunities to engage with students, the Alliance has organized and hosted a wide variety of events in 2023, from career fairs and career talks, to CEO panels and internship showcases.
Students attend the EECS Alliance Career Fair in 2023. Photo credit: Ryan McCarthy.
Hosted the day before MIT’s flagship career fair, and only open to Alliance member companies and invited guests, the annual EECS Alliance Career Fair offers companies direct access to recruit EECS students. Over 750 students majoring in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and AI and Decision Making attended the EECS Alliance Career Fair on September 21, of 2023.
The Alliance organized a number CEO visits and talks in 2023, including a well-attended conversation with Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. The event, hosted by Asu Ozdaglar, Deputy Dean of Academics for the Schwarzman College of Computing and Department Head of EECS, focused on the rise of AI and the opportunities it presents for emerging engineers.
A lively discussion on proprietary trading was held by the Five Rings Women’s Collective over tea. Photo credit: Francis Borrego
The EECS Alliance often collaborates with companies on efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion within industry. The Five Rings Women’s Collective Afternoon Tea, held at the MIT Museum, brought together women from across MIT to discuss proprietary trading and how it benefits those in the quantitative trading and software development fields. Increasing gender parity in industry is a major initiative for the Alliance and the EECS Department, which recently unveiled its gender parity initiative, Thriving Stars.
Jerome Sanders speaks as part of the Career Inspiration Series. Photo credit: Jimmy Day.
A Career Inspiration Series is also organized throughout the year, to provide companies a platform to present employment opportunities, career journeys, and emerging technologies. Jerome Sanders, an intrapreneur at Cisco, presented to students on his career journey within Cisco on April 20, 2023.
Two Estimathons® hosted by Jane Street throughout the year brought together over 100 students, who participated in a mind-bending mixture of math and trivia. Teams attempted 13 Fermi problems in 30 min, ranging from totally trivial to positively Putnamesque.
Additionally, the Alliance works closely with programs across the institute, and helps its members connect with relevant events and initiatives within MIT. In collaboration with the MIT’s CAPD, Alliance members, John Deere, InstaDeep, and Bose, joined the Careers in AI/ML for PhDs and Postdocs on October 19, 2023. The event provided student participants insight from industry professionals in the AI and machine learning space, and allowed them to ask questions and explore how organizations across a variety of fields are already using AI and machine learning to make business decisions, predict trends, and make improvements to existing technologies.
Cooper Jones, 6A Alum
6A, the flagship program in the EECS Alliance, continues to be popular with organizations and students. The program helps MIT EECS students pursue impactful full-time internships in industry and government labs. Many of the students in the 6A program are interested in pursuing their M.Eng. degree, and the program allows them to apply the work done at the company during the M.Eng. year towards their MEng thesis. Over 40 students participated in 6A internships in 2023.
Students who interned at Analog, Cadence, InstaDeep, and NetApp presented their work to the department on November 7th to faculty, students, and company representatives. Each student had the opportunity to share their research, discuss major achievements, talk about challenges they faced, and provide insights for future interns.
To learn more about the EECS Alliance program, or to get involved, visit the EECS Alliance.
Media Inquiries
Journalists seeking information about EECS, or interviews with EECS faculty members, should email eecs-communications@mit.edu.
Please note: The EECS Communications Office only handles media inquiries related to MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. Please visit other school, department, laboratory, or center websites to locate their dedicated media-relations teams.