Computer Vision News - May 2018

I’m actually graduating next Friday! Great! Congratulations! Thank you. What is going to come next? I’m looking for jobs. I’m an imaging scientist, so I’m still applying, doing interviews. In America? Yes. What brought you to America? I’m originally from Spain. Whereabout? Madrid. We have an agreement with my university in Spain and Illinois Institute of Technology. So I came here to do my masters with this agreement, and then I was doing my masters on medical imaging. I really liked this field, and I decided to stay for my PhD. Do you regret it? No, I love it here. What is the one thing that you regret about Spain? I miss the food ! [Laughs] And my family, of course. [Laughs] What is the best thing that you have found here, in America? I think there are a lot of opportunities here for doing research. There is not that many investments in R&D in Spain. Let’s go back a few years before. You are a young girl, studying science in Madrid. How is it to be a young scientist girl in Madrid? I mean, it’s true that our school, most of the students are guys. But I think they’re really inclusive. Like, I never felt out of anything because I was a girl. Why did you choose science? I always loved science since I was a kid. I always liked math. What attracts you in this domain? I think I like solving problems. Have you already been able to solve problems? Yes, I hope so! Can you tell me the most difficult problem that you have solved? Well, I’m working with breast cancer images, so I have a lot of challenges with this kind of thing. We have a lot of challenges with these kind of images. Some images are very noisy, and we don’t have a lot of human marked data sets. Are you a perfectionist? Yes, I am. And does it have only advantages? No, not really. What are the disadvantages? 36 Saturday ISBI DAILY Maria Sainz de Cea Women in Science Maria Sainz de Cea was a PhD student at Illinois Institute of Technology. She graduated only a few days after ISBI 2018 and is still weighing her next steps: if you have a position for her, call her now, she’s a great catch! BEST OF