Organization of the Spring 2020 Research Prelim Exam
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EXAM COMMITTEE

The committee consists of 
  Yen-Chi Chen
  Adrian Dobra (Chair)
  Zaid Harchaoui
  Tyler McCormick

Each student will be examined by two committee members.

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FORMAT OF THE EXAM

* A written report, up to 20 pages long (not including references), following
  the template provided.
* An oral exam, consisting of
    a 25 minutes oral presentation (public), and
    a question and answer period of approximately 15 minutes (closed).

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WRITTEN REPORT

The report should be written in the style of a journal paper and
should be no more than 20 pages, double-spaced, including Figures and
Tables. It should have a Bibliography (which is not counted in the 20
page limit), and references should be cited in a standard style.
Appendices containing supplementary material may also be submitted,
but these will not necessarily be read by the examiners.

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ORAL EXAM

Oral exams are scheduled for Thursday June 11 and Friday June 12. A
zoom link to the virtual meeting will be forwarded to each student
taking the prelim.

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MATERIALS TO BE SUBMITTED BY FRIDAY JUNE 5, 2020, 11:59PM

Upload a zip file named "your name.zip" of a folder named "your name" as
solution to the assignment "Final versions of presentation and report"
on the 572 Canvas. The folder should contain:

* A pdf of your report
* A pdf of your presentation
* A folder with your code files
* A pdf or html of the paper you were studying
* A file or folder with supplementary materials (optional - may not be
  read by the committee))

The file names should contain your name, as in
"perry-prelim-report.pdf","perry-prelim-slides.pdf", ....

You may make (hopefully minor) changes to your slides after the
submission deadline, for example by updating experimental results.  

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EVALUATION

The project and presentation will be evaluated with regard to the
following criteria (weighted about equally):

** High-level comprehension
   ------------------------
   What is the problem posed and why is it important? What makes this
   problem hard, or technically interesting? What is the core
   challenge in solving this problem? What is the main contribution of
   the paper?  What are the limitation of this contribution? How does
   it connect to other statistical problems, algorithms and concepts
   taught in statistics graduate classes? How does it connect to other
   areas of statistics? Related work (especially ways the results of
   this paper were extended or improved).

** Understanding of technical / mathematical aspects
   --------------------------------------------------
   Does the student understand the technical details of the paper they
   were studying? Did the student improve results, simplify proofs, or
   find and correct mistakes? Does the student understand the
   connection between aspects of the paper and topics in the courses
   they have taken.

** Understanding of computational aspects
   --------------------------------------
   Does the student understand the computational problems in
   the paper and the algorithms used to solve them? How proficient
   is the student in the use of computational tools? 

** Writing and presentation
   ------------------------
   Do the student's report and presentation demonstrate understanding
   of the problem and its motivation and context, of what's new and
   important and what is not? Do they concisely summarize the main
   contributions of the paper and assess its strengths and
   weaknesses? Is the report well organized and easy to read? Did the
   oral presentation focus on the essentials and avoid clutter? Did it
   convey a clear message and educate rather than overwhelm the
   audience? Was the technical level appropriate for a general
   statistics audience not necessarily familiar with the topic? Did
   it finish in the allotted time?