Computer Vision News - January 2017

Yes! [ laughs ] I’m not going to gloss over that. It’s really hard. My first academic post was in Oxford. I started there in 2007 as an associate professor in medical imaging. I was commuting from London so it took me about two and a half hours from doorstep to doorstep. Luckily, my husband is an academic at Imperial College so he was there to help. He did most of the nursery runs in the beginning. They were 2 and 4 when I started, actually: my first day at Oxford was my daughter’s first day at primary school. We both started big school on the same day... [smiles] At that time, without his support I would not have been able to do most of those things. He had the time to take on these parental responsibilities, and I could focus on catching up with my academic career. I think I was about 37 when I started, so I was a bit late already. It worked out very well, but it was very hard. I missed lots of school plays over time. We could not take the kids very often on half term holidays, apart from summer or Christmas, because we were in the middle of the academic term. I think in the end it’s more about quality time rather than quantity. I think we’ve managed well… [ laughs again ]. Do you have colleagues who did not find such a good balance between work and family? I know one colleague who had four children: she was completely responsible for them and at the same time was becoming a full-time academic, while her husband was travelling a lot. That was really hard. You have to do it as a team. As a mother, it is hard when you have to work on weekends, mark exams, coursework, or read thesis chapters of your students in the evenings. Still, you also have some flexibility. I think people quite often forget about that. The flexibility in academia gives you the possibility to stay home a day in the middle of the week because your child is ill, unless you have to give a lecture. These things happen. We would assess in the morning whose day is more important. We always say lectures trump everything… or tutorials vs. classes, or seminars vs. academic visitors coming. We always had to decide which is more important on that particular day. Does working as a scientist woman have any advantages over working as a saleswoman or a secretary? I think so, but it’s also a full time job in 22 Computer Vision News Women in Computer Vision “ That is something I want to take on as part of the MICCAI society ” Women in Science