CVPR Daily - Thursday

23 DAILY CVPR Thursday Michigan Tech University. While trying to make a decision, NIH asked me if I am interested in joining their computational health lab. I immediately decided that I want to go to NIH. My long-term plan is to be a professor, but I think I made the right decision in joining NIH. They have a significant amount of data. I thought joining there for a couple of years would really help me build my career in the future. I can find the right scientists, access datasets, and just be around people who are really well- known, specifically in healthcare. It’s good for me. I decided to join NIH, and right now I’m working there. How was it growing up as a muslim in America? I usually avoid talking about that. It’s not easy. All countries, all communities, sometimes have stereotypes about people. To be honest, most people in the academic field are not like that. But it happened several times during my career that I heard people saying, “ You don’t look like a scientist! ” This is one of the things that really annoys me a bit. People tell me, “ Oh, you’re very lucky! ” I think people assume that my life was easy because I’m Saudi. I didn’t grow up having an easy life. In grad school, my lab mates told me, “ Oh, you are too feminine to be a scientist. ” I heard it like two, three times. I reported that to my supervisor. After which, they completely avoided that. Do you think it would be easier to be just like everyone else? When I was younger, when I was an undergrad or in the beginning of my grad school days … But I believe now that we don’t need to be an identical copy of each other. I grew up as a Jew in Italy. I also didn’t look the same and my name was not similar to the names of people around me. So I can relate to your story. What will you say to your daughter, when you have one? Will you tell her, “ Try to have an easier life than the one I had ” or “ Go your way and don’t worry about how you look or how people look at you ”? Definitely I will tell her to go and take the risk. It’s harder, but it’s more interesting and more fun. It’s going to make her a stronger person. Ghada Zamzmi