Computer Vision News - October 2020

2 Women in Science 34 life, and all of them might be great. But to find someone who can simplify the complex and pour it into your brain, that is an outlier. In the language of machine learning, an outlier. I learned how to do that, and this enabled me to formalize things, create new problems, and create new solutions. This allowed me to understand deeply and to simplify. You told me some of the great things that you learned from your advisor. Have you learned something from a student of yours that is valuable to you? Absolutely! I would say that my students are my best teachers. They challenge me all the time, on an intellectual level, scientific level, and personal level. I try to become a better researcher but also a better human being. Can you share one example? There are so many stories. One is a Eureka moment! This is on a personal level. For example, in meetings with students, sometimes I explain things many times and repeat myself many times. I am usually very easy going and flowy and joyful about my work. Sometimes with a lot of pressure and a lot of students, you might have some high expectations of students, especially those whom you train for a long time, not the newbies. Since you might have high expectations of those students, I would say I might think it was perfect timing. I spent two years there, and in those two years, I learned how to properly think and reason as a researcher. Thanks to Professor Dinggang and the research team there, I was able to take off and fly solo after that and start the BASIRA Lab. Can you tell us more about the inspiration you found there? Yes, absolutely! There were so many things that I learned there, but I will say one thing that stands out. I used to attend the weekly meetings, and we had a huge group of around 40 people in a very small room. When I asked a question, there would be a student presenting, and I wouldn't understand the basic concept. For example, what is sparsity? I remember Professor Dinggang always using his five fingers to explain, in just a few minutes, the most complex mathematical concepts. He would just simplify it using his hand. That did not just explain to me and teach me the concept, but I learned how to teach and simplify this, too. I think this skill is very precious and truly invaluable. You can attend many lectures and have many teachers in your “I learned how to select the best students, those who are disciplined, highly engaged.”