ECCV 2016 Daily - Friday

ECCV Daily: First, congrats for your PhD, received only two weeks ago! Cheng: Thank you! ECCV Daily: Cheng, yours is a very special personal path. Can you share it with our readers? Cheng: That’s a long story. I never know exactly what I like, so my strategy is to try different things. For my Bachelor’s, when I chose my program, I thought I wanted to become an engineer. I wasn’t clear about the difference between information theory and so on. At that time, I didn’t even know about computer vision or machine learning. I was only 17. I chose mechanical engineering and automation because it sounded cool. ECCV Daily: Where was it? Cheng: In Beijing, China ECCV Daily: Did you grow up in the capital? Cheng: No, I didn’t, but my family is from Beijing. I actually grew up in Taiyuan which is a city about 3 hours away from Beijing by train and after that I went back to study. At the time in high school, I needed to choose a program. I knew that I liked engineering so I chose that. Then I started and realized there are so many different programs. So I did my second degree, at the economics and management school. I have two Bachelor’s degrees. I took the courses there, but they were not challenging. It’s not the kind of problems that I want to solve. There they solved interesting problems like market analysis, but I really felt like I wanted to solve technical problems. ECCV Daily: Why do you want to solve these kind of problems? Is this something that gives you satisfaction? Cheng: Yes, exactly. I want to make some impact in the world. Big or small, I want to leave something useful. ECCV Daily: Were you a gifted child? Cheng: Well, it’s hard to define, right? [she laughs] I don’t think so. I think I’m just a normal person, but I never had problems with math or Cheng Zhang 12 ECCV Daily: Fr iday Women in Computer Vision