Call for Members of Technical Research

The guild’s title for the people doing its research. A Member of Technical Research belongs to one project’s working group, is approved by its lead, and works on it with the others until it is finished.

Everyone else in the guild is welcome at colloquia and on Discord.

You have to contribute. At kickoff every member takes on a concrete role and deliverables, and progress is shared at the group’s biweekly sync. If you stop contributing, the project lead can remove you from the group, and authorship goes to the people who did the work.

It cuts both ways: members who see a project through get priority for future projects and the chance to lead one.

There is a higher bar than for the rest of the guild, and each project lead decides who joins. What a project needs varies, but strong signs include research or publication experience, academic or professional; substantial industry experience and readiness to turn it to research; graduate study; or other clear evidence that you will contribute and see the work through.

That last one can come from anyone, including undergraduates and people who have not published yet. Following through on the time you commit matters as much as any of these.

Press Apply above, or Register interest on a project, and fill in the short form: who you are, your links, and the hours you can commit. The project lead reads every request and replies by email.

The hours you committed, usually 6–8 a week until publication; progress shared at your group’s biweekly sync; NY-MLR as the primary affiliation on the work; and, when you can, help for the groups that come after you.

No. Member of Technical Research is a community role, not a position at a company or institution. It involves no employment, pay or contract of any kind: just people interested in research coming together to work on an academic question.

The name is deliberately distinct from “Member of Technical Staff,” a job title at many companies. It is not that role and is not associated with it.

Check before you join that your employment or school agreements allow outside research. Some claim rights to work done on your own time, and some require you to disclose outside activities.

Never bring proprietary or confidential information into a project. If your employer works on the same problem, tell the project lead up front so the group can decide together.

Working groups are temporary by design, like a party in an MMO: formed for one project and disbanded when it ships, unless the members choose to keep going together on the next one.

As what it is, a volunteer research role. For example: “Member of Technical Research, New York Machine Learning Research Guild (NY-MLR), community research group.” Don’t present it as employment.