ETAPS Mentoring Workshop 2025

Did you know ETAPS runs a mentoring workshop? I sat down with two of the 2025 attendees, Juliane Paessler and Pierre Goutagny, over lunch at the conference and asked them what their experience was like.

Hi Both! Could you introduce yourselves?

Juliane: I’m a 4th year PhD student in Oslo. I work on the verification of self-adaptive systems. 2025 is my first ETAPS, but I have previously attended other conferences, including iFM, FM and ISOLA.

Pierre: I’m a first year PhD student at Inria, in Lille. I work on the verification of programs that implement laws. Specifically, computational laws, for example, tax law, social benefits, the payroll system. This is my first conference!

Why are you here, at ETAPS?

Juliane: The main reason I am attending ETAPS is for networking; I am finishing my PhD now, and so I am trying to meet people for networking and to find future job opportunities.

Pierre: I’m here because I have a paper at ESOP, and I’m presenting.

And why did you attend the mentoring workshop?

Pierre: One of my PhD advisors gave a talk at a previous one and told me it could be interesting to attend. I was expecting to use it as a way to meet people before the conference (and that was very successful, actually!)

Juliane: A friend who is also a PhD student was in the workshop last year and said it was interesting. I think it is nice to get to know other professors, and you get to have a closer connection with them because the workshop is smaller. They also talk about more personal stuff, their personal experiences.

What was your highlight of the mentoring workshop?

Juliane: It was interesting to see mentors discussing things together [on the panel], because they had very different opinions on some of the topics.

Are you allowed to say on which topics?

Juliane: I don’t know!

(EP: I guess what’s said in the mentoring workshop stays in the mentoring workshop.)

Pierre: For me, one of the most valuable things was being able to meet people in a small environment, and then have people to eat lunch with and talk in the breaks during the main conference. I think I would have felt way more alone if I hadn’t attended the mentoring workshop.

Juliane: Yes, it was good for meeting both supervisors and PhD students. At the end, there is a dinner that mentors and mentees attend, and that creates a sense of community.

Is there anything you would add to the mentoring workshop?

Juliane: If it works for the number of people attending, it would be nice to have one-on-one sessions where students can talk to mentors by themselves.

Pierre: One of the things I’d be interested in is having different perspectives from different generations of researchers, so maybe adding someone who is just finishing up their PhD. Of course, they wouldn’t have the same level of advice, but maybe it would put things in perspective because the environment they do their PhD in is more similar to ours.

Juliane: Maybe it would also be nice to have someone in industry, so you see a successful career in academia, but also a successful career in industry.

What was the best session at the conference, and why?

Juliane: Well, yesterday we went to the Niagara Falls! Really recommend! I also enjoyed the keynote from Ina. I didn’t know much about correct-by-construction, and it was a nice introduction and perspective to her research.

Pierre: I enjoyed this morning’s keynote by Amal. It may be the one talk that I understood the most. It was nice to be able to follow everything from that. Actually, most of the ESOP type sessions were great! And I haven’t been to my own session yet!

Do you have any advice for a PhD student attending their first conference?

Pierre: I think I would recommend going to the mentoring workshop as a way to meet people and feel comfortable for the rest of the conference.

Juliane: Yes, and some conferences also have a buddy system, where you can apply for a buddy, who is a more senior PhD student. If you have the opportunity, you should do that!

Juliane Paessler and Pierre Goutagny