PhD Representatives Duties

About the PhD student council at CSC

The PhD student council at CSC is an important connection between each department, the PhD students there, the two PhD programs at CSC and the CSC school management team. We discuss all matters relevant to PhD students at CSC e.g. wage ladder, courses, quality criteria for PhD education, teaching responsibilities etc. The discussions in the PhD council are then taken to the CSC management group, THS and the Head of Doctoral Studies depending on their seriousness.

What does a representative do?

A PhD representative's duties are to help spread information important to PhD students, working on maintaining a high standard in CSC's PhD education and seeing that PhD students at CSC are treated equally and with fairness. The representatives are also asked to act as mentors for new PhD students at their institutions - show them the ropes, help them navigate KTH and CSC in general. It can be a rewarding role and gives valuable experience on and insight into how the University works.

The positions & their specific duties

Chairman of the Postgraduate Students' Council (10% departmental duties)

Duties:

Attend CSC management group (LG) meetings every second week
Attend meetings of the strategic council 3-6 times per year
Attend the Workplace Environment group (arbetsplatsrådet) meeting 4-6 times a year
Attend CS PhD Program council meetings (head of council: Dilian Gurov) 4 times a year
Meet with Head of PhD studies at CSC and Heads of Doctoral Programs occasionally
Plan CSC PhD Student council lunch meetings (once every month)
Organise DRICS (every other year)
Organise seminars (twice a year)

Secretary of the Postgraduate Students' Council (5% departmental duties)

Duties:

Is reserve on the duties of the Chairperson
Maintains the PhD student mailing list, i.e. adds new PhD students to the doctoral students' mailing list (doktorander@csc.kth.se) and sends them a welcome email (format here). This mailing list can be updated following these instructions.
Secretary at meetings, i.e. takes minutes of the PhD council meetings
helps organize seminars and catering

3 doctoral programme representatives in Mediated Communications (max. 3% departmental duties):

Media technology
HCI/Interaction design
Speech, Music and Hearing

Duties: Attends PhD program meetings with the Doctoral Programme Council. This council is centered around the PhD education itself, and you will discuss e.g. courses, the ladder seminars, etc. Number of meetings per year varies but can be between 4-8.

4 doctoral programme representatives in Computer Science(% departmental duties determined by the institution)

Theoretical Computer Science (TCS)
Computer Vision and Robotics (CVAP)
Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH)
Computational Science and Technology (CST)

NOTE: we are awaiting confirmation from THS regarding the CST representative, given that this is a new department resulting of a merge between CB (Computational Biology) and HPCViz (High Performance Computing and Visualization).

1 doctoral programme representative in Applied and Computational Mathematics (% departmental duties determined by the institution)

High performance computing and visualization

Duties: Attends PhD program meetings with Head of Doctoral Program.
NOTE: For positions as representatives in the doctoral programmes, it is ok for each institution's student body to vote in representatives in advance of the meeting and simply register these with the PhD council at the Annual Meeting.

PhD council institution representatives in the PhD Council (at least 6)(0% departmental duties)

Media technology and interaction design (MID)
Theoretical Computer Science (TCS)
Computer Vision and Robotics (CVAP/CAS)
Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH)
Computational Science and Technology (CST)

2 representatives for THS from each doctoral programme (PAD) (0% departmental duties)

1 representative from Doctoral programme in Mediated Communications
1 representative from Doctoral programme in Computer Science
Duties: PADs are a direct link between the PhD student council at CSC and the student union at THS. PADs meet roughly 4 times per year.

1 representative for the Workplace Environment Group (Arbetsplatsrådet) (0% departmental duties)

This position is fulfilled by the Council's Chairperson, and the Secretary as a replacement.
Duties: This group deals with issues of equality and diversity in the workplace but also CSC's sustainability policies, the workplace environment in general. Around 4-6 meetings per year.