I was thinking of cold emailing some professors and implementing some random papers/reading one of their papers beforehand This should be the right order: 1.

I was thinking of cold emailing some professors and implementing some random papers/reading one of their papers beforehand This should be the right order: 1. Read papers about topics that interest you 2. Implement/modify one of the papers, put it on GH with a detailed README and pretty plots 3. Contact authors and offer ideas and/or free labor to expand/continue their work This worked for me to get into research.