Tips on How to Connect at Academic Conferences

I was a kinda awkward teenager. If you are a CS researcher reading this post, then chances are, you were too. How to navigate social situations and make friends is not always intuitive, and has to be learnt. This is particularly true at a conference, where the event is short (just a few days) and the number of people may be intimidatingly large (in the thousands of people). So I wrote this post to give some pointers on how I might go about socially navigating such events, particularly as a newcomer.

I hope to do the following two things:

• Convince you that connecting with other researchers in your area is worthwhile; and
• Give concrete advice on how to connect with people at conferences.

Throughout this post, I use the term “connect.” You can think of it as meaning something in the space of “befriend,” “make acquaintance,” “develop a rapport,” or “establish commonalities.” The meaning of the term has been somewhat cheapened by professional connotations and, e.g., LinkedIn. 

Finally, this post is primarily written with large-scale machine learning conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) in mind. Vibes and strategies may differ at other styles of conferences. For example, theoretical computer science conferences don’t usually have poster sessions. And at a smaller conference, depending on how fitting the topic is, you might have an easier or harder time finding someone you can connect with. So your mileage may vary, but I think the overarching principles remain sound across a variety of conferences (and social settings more generally). 

Primarily: because it’s fun! For better or worse, researchers often tend to be friends with other researchers. This is perhaps unsurprising, as we befriend people with whom we have something in common, and research tends to be a large part of researchers’ lives. I have made many friends through the research world, who I look forward to seeing every time I go to a conference or workshop. It is generally fun to have friends all around the world: case in point, I started drafting this post while waiting for a researcher friend to arrive, as we were going sightseeing in Hong Kong. I talk daily with many friends from the research community, who are based in a variety of locations, on a plethora of different topics (research and non-research related). 

Secondarily, it can be useful for professional reasons. People don’t generally enter and leave the research community multiple times: the people you will meet at conferences may be your professional colleagues for your entire career. You will read each other’s papers. You will do service together. You will meet again and again at conferences. You may even go to each other’s 65th birthday parties (a common academic tradition). So it can be worthwhile to meet and connect with the relevant people early on. It will give you some familiarity of who’s doing work in your research area and facilitate more natural interactions with them in the future.

This is not (directly) a guide on how to “network.” Networking connotes a primarily professional motive: for example, you’re seeking to find a job, or to feel important because you’re interacting with (supposedly) important people. I just like making friends and connecting with other human beings. Part of why I do research is because of the community. It feels good to be part of something bigger than just myself. I find it a bit off-putting and transparent when people are interacting to network while pretending to be trying to connect. Nonetheless, like I said, connecting with people can be professionally valuable.

Now that we’ve established that it’s worthwhile to connect with people, how do you do it? Note that the advice I’ll give here is fairly general purpose (broadly speaking, “find things you have in common”) but specialized for academic settings.

Easy mode: find a socially capable senior mentor in your area (e.g., your advisor) and tag along with them. They will know people, they will know the people you should know, and they probably have enough confidence and social capital to be able to introduce you to relevant people. I have done this for some of my students and mentees before. A caricature of such an interaction: “Hey [student X], remember we read this paper by [student Y] together, let’s go check out their poster! Hey [student Y], good to see you again after [conference Z], this is my student [student X]. Can you tell us about your work? (…conversation about their work…) [Student X] has some interesting results on [topic W] that you’ve been working on, maybe you two can schedule some time to chat later?”

But maybe your advisor couldn’t attend the conference, or they’re busy, and you’re left to fend for yourself. What can you do? Again: try your best to find things you have in common. 

The most natural commonality: research interests. This can manifest in a few different ways. Suppose you see someone whose paper you have read. If you’ve done related work in the area, even better. You can literally walk up to them and say “Hey, you’re [person X], right? My name is [person Y]. I read your paper on [topic W] and thought it was really cool!” You can then ask more questions — maybe something about their paper, whether they’re still working on that problem, etc. You might also tell them about your work in the area. 

Note that this type of interaction will work much better for folks at (or below) your seniority rather than above. For example, it would be very memorable and validating for a junior grad student to hear that someone else read and liked their paper, whereas this might be more common for senior researchers. This is OK. Your goal here is to make friends (likely to be people of comparable seniority), and not “network” with “celebrities.” Besides, there is probably more scientific and professional value to connecting with people at a similar seniority to you, as they will be your contemporaries throughout your career.

Another approach for connecting with people is discovering mutual friends. Perhaps you and the other person have a mutual co-author. Maybe they’ve hung out with your advisor before. If you can mention this in a natural way, it could build an instant connection and some rapport. I’m advocating for, e.g., if you have a suspicion that the person is close with your advisor,  “Hey, I’m [person X], and I’m advised by [person Y]” and see if they know each other. This is more natural than, e.g., “I know [people A, B, and C]. Do you know any of these people?” (though if you have a suspicion they do know someone, e.g., they’re in the same group, that could be less awkward). Mutual friends will generally not be obvious in advance, so a bit of trial and error may be needed. 

This strategy could be described using a loaded term: “name dropping.” Indeed, it is a type of name dropping. But that term usually implies the goal of impressing someone with how famous your advisor is or what elite school you go to. Don’t try to do that. It will only make people like you less. Our goal is to make friends. We’re name dropping to connect with people, not to impress people.

Courtesy Marika Swanberg, here are some other helpful icebreakers and conversation topics:

• “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met,” if it’s the first time you’re meeting someone. This will generally lead them to introducing themselves, which can be less intimidating than introducing yourself to someone else. In the case you have met before, then they’ll tell you where, and that’s another easy start to the conversation.
• “Are there any sessions/posters you’re looking forward to this afternoon?” This has a dual purpose. You’ll learn more about them and what they’re interested in. And second, if their research is adjacent to yours, you’ll get some information about what work in the field has got the attention of others. 

We’ve talked about strategies to connect with people. But when do you do it? 

Coffee breaks are, in one sense, the ideal time: the whole point is to grab snacks and socialize. In theory, people are happy to be approached and to talk to people. On the other hand, I know from first-hand experience it can be quite intimidating, especially if you don’t know anyone yet. In practice, you’ll see people talking in small groups like they’re best friends, and it feels like everyone already knows each other (hint: in many cases, they just met within the last day or two). You can squeeze into most such circles and people will generally be courteous and make space for you. Again, this can be scary if you’re not a social butterfly (and if you’re a CS researcher reading this post, you probably aren’t), especially since you have to work your way into the conversation after that point. Slightly easier is to join a group with someone you already know somehow (e.g., co-author, mentor, advisor, someone you already met at the conference) — you don’t have to know them well, even a brief chat at a poster earlier makes it feel a lot less awkward. As a general throughline of this entire post, “friends beget more friends.” But again, this still leaves open how to approach someone for the first time. 

Poster sessions can be a better time to approach people. If someone is presenting their poster, they want to be approached, and you should do so. The caveat is that they are also likely to be busy, with other people wanting to learn about their work, and you should be mindful to not take up too much time. You can build up some rapport with them, and then schedule some time to meet with them later. You may also find people you want to talk to wandering around the poster session (e.g., in the area with posters related to your research). This may actually be the ideal way to approach someone. It has all the social benefits of the coffee break (people want to talk to people), but without some of the drawbacks (people are less likely to be entrenched in conversation groups).

You can also chat with people during conference talks! I don’t mean literally in a talk (that’s just rude), but in the hallway, simultaneous to when talks are going on (sometimes called “the hallway track”). When you first go to a conference, you might think that your job is to attend literally every talk. This can be exhausting and you might not get much out of it. Some senior researchers I know are able to appreciate one or two talks per day, but not much more. Don’t be afraid to skip talks if something else interesting is going on (like a good hallway conversation with someone you’re really getting along with). 

Another common strategy is to email people ahead of the conference, asking if they’ll be there and if they want to meet. This can be tricky, since you might not know who’s at the conference, and even if they are, they might not be so organized as to have planned out their entire schedule. Again, you should try to email people who you’re most likely to have a real connection with, and not just for the sake of networking. 

Conference lunch can have a unique dynamic. If the conference is catered, don’t be shy and sit at a table with literally anyone. This is easier than breaking into conversation circles, because everyone needs to sit on a chair and eat food. If people have to go out for lunch, you’ll usually see groups forming in the lobby. It is not weird to ask to join a random group, even if you don’t know anyone, though once again, you’ll probably feel more comfortable if you do. These groups often merge with others, and then eventually split when you can’t find a place that can seat everyone. Tagging along with a senior mentor can also be very helpful. As an advanced tip: I would suggest trying to eat meals with different groups of people throughout a conference. After finding one group, it’s very easy to just stick with them the whole conference. And if this is your first conference and you’re able to do that, that’s great! But if you can step outside your comfort zone, you might benefit from meeting even more people. 

There are times when you should not approach people at a conference. If they seem in a hurry and walking somewhere. If they’re in a call or a research meeting. If they’re feeding their child. Use your judgement if people look focused or busy with a task — but don’t mistake this with being busy socializing, because that’s a signal that they’re in the socializing headspace.

After you’ve connected with someone, what do you do next? At the conference itself, there might be plans for the evenings (e.g., dinner) or sightseeing before/after the conference (or even skipping days of the conference itself). It’s easy enough to ask questions like “What are you doing for dinner?” or “Did you have any plans to do stuff in the area?” Either they don’t, and they might be happy to plan something with you, or they do have plans, and might invite you along (if it’s not something small/exclusive). You might end up in a group chat on WhatsApp etc., which will facilitate other conference socializing. There’s often a person or two who takes the lead by suggesting plans — you will naturally find that person. Advanced tip: be that person. People like to do things but don’t always like to organize/lead things, so they appreciate such a person.

Remember that these connections can last beyond the conference, and potentially even a lifetime. If you had a good research conversation with someone, you can send them an email to talk more about it afterwards, potentially starting a collaboration. If you’re traveling through the city where they’re based, you could meet and grab coffee or a meal. You can even ask if you can give a research talk to their group/department. 

This document is written by someone who considers himself relatively extroverted and is already established in the community. I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who differs in both aspects, but let me caveat the advice I give above.

To address an elephant in the room: many people will be at the conference trying to network. This is not inherently a bad thing, it may be something you are interested in doing as well (though as mentioned before, this is not directly the guide for that). There are however some negative consequences. Interactions with others can feel “fake” or transactional, especially if people network under the guise of connecting. You may feel like you’re being judged constantly, on things ranging from your institutional affiliation to your race or gender. Unfortunately, these elements are present to some degree at pretty much every conference. It can be quite mentally and emotionally draining, and naturally make you want to retreat. But in the context of this post, people who are fake, transactional, elitist, or judging: they’re not really people you want to connect with anyway. If you find yourself in an interaction that’s draining your energy or otherwise making you feel bad, politely excuse yourself and find yourself a way to recover, which may involve hanging out with your closest friends at the conference (co-authors, mentors, colleagues) or decompressing by yourself.

On that note, even absent awkward interactions, conferences can be extremely tiring. There’s a lot of stuff going on, with a huge number of people. On top of this, you might have jet lag. You don’t have to succumb to your FOMO, and it’s perfectly normal to take some time for yourself. This is probably not your last conference, you don’t have to do absolutely everything the first time. I usually try to book accommodation as close to the venue as possible in case I need to take a breather.

You might think that you are not suited for socializing at a conference because you are an awkward CS nerd. But you are at a CS conference: pretty much everyone is an awkward CS nerd. Stated differently, most people are in the same boat that you are, at a big event with lots of people they don’t know, but cautiously eager to talk to people. So don’t think you’re the odd one out who doesn’t belong: we’re all drawn together by our mutual research interests, so everyone belongs.

While I was drafting this post, someone shared the following article “New in ML: A Guide for Navigating the ML Conference Scene,” by Khimya Khetarpal and Cheng Soon Ong. This is a fantastic guide for a bunch of things you can do at a machine learning conference. It is more professionally-focused than (and thus complementary to) my post. Some folks I talked to found it a bit stress-inducing, so take it more as a collection of suggestions and advice, rather than a must-do guide for a conference. You might vibe more with the strategies in that post (and this one) if you are a Type A personality.

On that note, remember that everyone experiences and enjoys a conference differently! Some people really like interacting with people, others prefer to keep to themselves. Some folks get a lot out of conference talks, while others are spent after just a talk or two. And obviously, everyone has different strategies on how to socialize and connect with people. What I suggest in this guide might not vibe with you. It might even make you think twice about going to a conference! But if that’s the case for you, ignore everything I wrote, go to the conference, and tell me what worked for you. Send me an email! Your strategies or suggestions might even end up in this post (with attribution).

Thanks to Antti Honkela, Sandeep Silwal, Adam Smith, Thomas Steinke, Marika Swanberg, Jonathan Ullman for comments and feedback on this post.