CVPR Daily - Wednesday

DAILY Wednesday Women in Computer Vision 24 Evonne Ng is a PhD student in UC Berkeley's EECS program, where she is advised b y Professor Trevor Darrell. Her current interests revolve around using computer vision techniques to study and further social signal processing. She speaks to us ahead of her oral presentation tomorrow (Thursday). How did you end up in your position? Personally, I find it to be a very interesting story. I was definitely thinking of going into industry all throughout undergrad. I feel like all the classes I took and all of my experiences were geared toward industry, primarily because I enjoyed the internship life. Once I’m done with school, I don’t want to take another test or anything like that. [Laughs] I want to be out of here! I guess that really changed when I started doing research with my advisor at UT Austin. I was previously in Texas. Who was the advisor? Kristen Grauman. She’s a lovely professor. I feel very lucky to have had her as a research advisor in undergrad because that really shaped my future. When I started doing research with her, I realized that it feels a lot more fulfilling to come up with your own idea and see it through until the end, to see the fruition of your work. It was just a lot more rewarding than any previous project or experience that I had in an internship. When we were deciding whether or not I should do grad school, I mentioned the prospect of doing a PhD. She was like, “You should just go for it!” Did she guilt you into a PhD? It was a slight push! [ laughs ] She didn’t want to overstep or anything, but I felt guided by her. You do not regret it. No! I’m having an amazing time right now. I love the work that I do. "Everyone always has something to contribute."