IEEE S&P 2020 - Shadow PC

I was part of the Shadow PC for IEEE S&P 2020. THe Shadow PCs replicate the entire peer review process of a conference in parallel to the actual conference. This includes reading and reviewing papers, debating our reviews and scores with other members, and finally arriving at a consensus on the paper's accepted. The results of the shadow PC are then compared with main PC to see if any papers had strong disagreements.

The reading and review is in itself not very different from what we do as graduate stedents. But comparing our reviews with those of others and debating the merits of each paper was a great learning experience. This extended to the comparison of our reviews with those of the main PC. It was interesting to see how the main PC arrived at their decisions and how they differed from ours.

The Shadow PC is a great opportunity for students, my takeaways were:

1. Learn how to review papers.
2. Learn how to write good reviews.
3. Learn how to debate the merits of a paper.
4. Experience the peer review process from the other side.
5. Socialize with other students and get to know how their groups work.
6. Have fun! Best of all, free travel to NYC! Google NYC was a great host.