Computer Vision News 30 but people are very hardworking and that’s very different from the UK. After I arrived in the UK, I realized people don’t need to work at night and neither on the weekends. That’s quite amazing for me because in China, where I did my PhD, we always needed to work at night, and also during the weekends. Wow. That must be very challenging. How did you manage to spend your young years working on research instead of going out and having fun with your friends? I didn’t feel it’s not normal because many people surrounding me also did the same thing, so I thought that’s the thing we should do. I didn’t think much about that. After moving to the UK, I realized people don’t need to work so much time, and a lot of their life belongs to themselves. Then I followed their style and realized I suddenly have a lot of time, which I haven’t had before! [Lei laughs] That’s quite new for me. At the beginning, I didn’t even know how to spend this spare time because I didn’t have that before. [she laughs] So now go and have fun! But one thing very interesting I realized is that even though I work less time compared to China, I don’t think my research has been delayed, which means I’m more focused and more efficient, even though I don’t work for such a long time. Is there anything that you miss from China in your European work? Food and family do not count! [she laughs] Yeah, I wanted to say food and family. Otherwise, I think I miss my previous research group, like my supervisor, Xiahai Zhuang. It’s a bit shy to say, but I regard him almost like my father. He’s super nice. What is the most important thing you have learned from him? The most important thing I learned from my supervisor is critical thinking. Previously, I never thought I will be a scientist, or I will be a PhD student. I was just a very typical Chinese student just learning the thing I learned from the teacher. The teacher tells me, I will believe it. I will never think whether this is right. After I did my PhD with my supervisor, he always taught me to think about the things I learned from others and read from papers; I cannot 100% trust it. Also, he always guided me, before I do anything, Women in Science
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