Northeastern University Human-Centered AI Lab (NEU-HAI) Norms (inspired by Michael Bernstein’s Research with Michael)

CSCW Code of Conduct is the baseline set of behaviors and level of respect that we expect from each other. Our lab does NOT tolerate harassment, talking down, sexism, racism, or other behaviors that marginalize.
Northeastern University’s Academic Integrity Policy has a set of definitions for Academic Integrity Policy (e.g., Cheating, Plagiarism, Unauthorized Collaboration) and consequences.
Northeastern University’s Policy on Human Subjects Research (IRB) has a set of training and policies for research projects that involve human subjects.

If you think something goes wrong, report it to me, and I will generally start by having a private conversation with each of the people involved. I will develop consequences dictated by the nature of the violation since they are the principles of conducting research.
For current Ph.D./visiting scholars/postdocs, our mutually agreed expectation is that you should actively engage in research. Typically, a year of active research will result in one publishable quality full-paper submission to a top-tier venue (all 20 B.S./M.S./Ph.D. students I have mentored in the past five years have achieved it). For prospective Ph.D./visiting scholars/postdocs, if you find it difficult to meet this expectation, please consider joining another research group that better fits you.
We will have a half-year reflection meeting (December and June). If you are struggling in the first half-year, we can discuss the explicit criteria and we will have some time to work on it together. If you continually fail the criteria, then in the second half-year reflection meeting, I will make a recommendation to you (and to the Ph.D. committee) that you should leave this group, so that you will not be surprised.
We only submit papers to top-tier venues (e.g., CHI, CSCW, UIST, Ubicomp, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP…). For unfamiliar domains, CCF-A list is a good starting point. We will ONLY allow a submission if the finished paper is above our publishable quality.
A full paper draft needs to be ready 7 days before the paper submission deadline. Otherwise, no submission.
We will sponsor the first author(s) of all accepted papers to travel to conferences to present their work. If none of your first-authored submissions get accepted in a particular year, we can also sponsor up to one conference travel for your accepted co-authored paper.
All academic-related expenses should be submitted in a timely manner. It will be very hard to get reimbursement after 30 days of the expense occurred.
Being actively present at group meetings and on Slack is expected. This means both in terms of literal presence and active engagement (e.g., tossing ideas into the meeting or Slack channel, giving people feedback, asking questions, and finding opportunities to deepen both our insights and our social connections).
I take your time very seriously, and in return, I expect that you will apply your excitement, energy, and creativity to it. This does not mean working every waking hour. I can tell you from personal experience, and those of friends and colleagues, that pushing yourself too hard only results in burnout and uninspiring research. We strongly discourage you from working late at night or during the weekends. If I have concerns about your level of commitment to the project or about how you are prioritizing, I will tell you directly in a weekly meeting, so you can make changes to your behavior.
The university’s academic calendar does not always align with our research activities. If you are a Ph.D./visiting scholar/postdoc/RA student, according to university policy, Spring breaks/Winter breaks/Summer may not be a holiday to us. However, in our lab, you have unlimited vacation days and remote working days. Just ask if you need it.
For Masters and Undergrads RAs: to succeed in research, you need to be able to dedicate significant time to it. Each unit at Northeastern is roughly three hours of work per week outside of the one-hour class/meetings. Making this concrete: for my group, you need to be willing to dedicate at least four units of time — about twelve hours a week outside the meetings — to it in a given semester. I am very happy to support research for credit if you’d like this reflected in your transcript! It’s not uncommon for students to wind up as coauthors on papers, or eventually do a PhD. Happy to chat about this.