Computer Vision News - February 2018

32 Computer Vision News day to day scientific motivation? I think it’s really important, although my daily work revolves around coming up with ideas that, in my mind, are very simple. Then you have to teach your computer how to do that. That can take a lot longer. Once you do get results, that’s when curiosity really starts playing a role again. Now you have to interpret results. We’ve come to a point where we have machines do all of the calculations, all of the tedious work, work that we don’t want to do. Then out comes a plot. Now the physicists need to sit back and start questioning the plot and the results. Does it make sense? What is it telling me about the world? Is it in agreement with my hypothesis or is it not? That’s usually not straightforward. In general, you need to start thinking about what other plots you can make and what other studies you can make to figure out what came out of your previous experiment. Every once in a while, there is maybe a more pure form of curiosity, which is when you start wrapping up a project and jump into the next one. From there, you really start wondering: what you can do that has never been done before, what is the topic that people have wanted to tackle without necessarily knowing how to? That’s when you can really think about the methods out there. How can I rotate them to fit my problem? That can be something very innovative. Where is home, Michela? In Italy? In the States? Or is there no home yet? It’s everywhere. I’m blessed with the opportunity of having lived in a lot of different countries throughout my life, primarily in Italy for the first 17 years of my life… then back and forth between the United States and Switzerland… France for a bit and, for a short while, in England. I feel culturally European rather than necessarily Italian. I feel at home in the United States as well. Now I live in San Francisco. I’ve spent almost a decade of my life in the United States, perhaps my most formative years. There is no one place that I call home. There are multiple places that have been important in my life. What do you enjoy besides science? I like to play tennis. I’ve been playing tennis ever since I was little, maybe when I was five years old or even less. Whenever I get the chance I go out and play tennis, squash, or any sort of racket sports. I also really enjoy watching tennis on TV. Then we have another thing in common, besides being Italian. Who With Yale ATLAS colleagues from the Tipton group Women in Science “ I feel culturally European, rather than necessarily Italian ” Michela Paganini