MICCAI 2016 Daily - Tuesday

MICCAI Daily: Why were you unsure sometimes about your direction? Lena: When I think that it’s not the way to go, it’s mostly because I have some self-doubts. When I’m looking into what I’m doing, thinking whether it’s good enough, those are the moments when I think that it could be better. Maybe it is not better because I’m doing something wrong. MICCAI Daily: Why do you think female scientists struggle with confidence? Lena: There are several things which can lead to this. I think one is that, whatever we say, women are more emotional on average, we react much stronger to things happening. Maybe those strong emotions are the ones that incite lack of confidence. The second is, especially in technical fields, sometimes you hear people saying something like that’s not a thing for a girl to do. Especially in high school, I heard quite a lot that I should be in biology, linguistics, or something like in the line of “ Why are you doing physics ?” MICCAI Daily: From other students or from teachers? Lena: I would say both, sometimes. That seed kind of grows in you sometimes. MICCAI Daily: Did you ever think that if you were a boy that you wouldn’t care about this remark? Lena: No, I wonder more as to why people would say these things rather than think I wouldn’t like to be a girl. MICCAI Daily: How do you answer that? Lena: I think because people have stereotypes, and they project them on people. They think that it can’t be different. MICCAI Daily: Do you internalize this a lot? Lena: Those comments made me want to prove them wrong. Sometimes it can be positive. MICCAI Daily: What are the things that drove you to do more than what the average person is able to do? CVPR Daily: Thursday Women in Science 9 MICCAI Daily: Tuesday