Machine learning is one of the fastest growing areas of computer science research. In spite of the wide reach of machine learning and the variety of theory and applications it covers, the percentage of female researchers is lower than in many other areas of computer science. Most women working in machine learning rarely get the chance to interact with other female researchers, making it easy to feel isolated and hard to find role models.
The annual Women in Machine Learning (WiML) Workshop, co-located with NeurIPS, is our flagship event. This day-long technical workshop gives female faculty, research scientists, and graduate students in the machine learning community an opportunity to meet, exchange ideas and learn from each other. The workshop started at the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration and moved to NeurIPS in 2008. A History of WiML poster was created in 2015 to celebrate the 10th workshop.
In 2020, WiML introduced an “un-workshop” at ICML based on the concept of an “un-conference”, a form of discussion on a pre-selected topic that is primarily driven by participants. The overall goal of the un-workshop is to advance research through collaboration and increased interaction among participants from diverse backgrounds.