Episode 8: Rodrigo Fonseca

Interview with: Rodrigo Fonseca. 
Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. 
Formerly: Tenured Associate Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. Immigrant from Brazil.

Episode Guide

In this Episode with Rodrigo Fonseca: Coming first among 42000 students nationally in Brazil entrance exam to UFMG; Switching from architecture (buildings kind, not hardware kind!) to Computer Science; To and fro between industry to academia; Missing out on startups; Exchange student in the US; Turning down Brazil government’s scholarship; And much more!

• mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
• 0.00: Voices in this episode
• 1.43: Biography
• Chapter 1: 3.44-9.56: Early childhood, 1980s.
  • 4.35: First interest in Science and Math from Dad, First contact with computers Atari 2600
  • 6.14: Dad is a doctor, tried to convince him to do medicine
  • 7.26: Diorama of a computer, even before he had a computer
  • 8.32: First programming languages learned
• Chapter 2: 9.15-18.54: Brazil education system: Prescribed syllabus in Brazil, different from US. 1980s/90s
  • 10.56: Exams during high school year: spread or one big exam
  • 12.02: Could you slack off in a quarter in school?
  • 12.27: Was CS or programming taught in school?
  • 20.14: Second computer. Commodore Amiga, sequencing of music.
  • 14.40: Free public universities, Private vs. Public High schools 
  • 21.00: Private vs Public schools
  • 16.04: Entrance exam to Public Universities
  • 17.27: Language of exam and schooling in Portuguese, Separate English school three times a week
• Chapter 3: 18.54-24.59: First Immigration to US. Exchange student in US in last year of high school, 1990s.
• Chapter 4: 24.59-34.19: Brazil University Entrance Exam for UFMG (where Rodrigo stood first out of 42,000 students), late 1990s. 
  • 26.34: Extra supplemental classes
  • 27.57: The Marketplace of supplemental classes in Brazil
  • 31.46: The changed system today in Brazil
• Chapter 5: 34.19-43.31: First Love: Architecture, the Buildings kind not the Computer Kind (and journey of immigrating from Architecture to CS), late 1990s.
  • 37.02: Second time writing entrance exam
  • 37.54: His undergrad Professor who introduced him to research 
  • 39.06: Transitioning from Arch to CS, applying credits
  • 39.41: Met his wife in Arch school
  • 39.49: First steps of research in first year of BSc
  • 41.59: Should undergrads start research early or late?
• Chapter 6: 43.31-51.02: Second Immigration to the US, in 2002. The Research vs. Industry tension. What made him change his mind to apply to a PhD, 2002. 
  • 43.31: Early experiences of research, why choose PhD over work.
  • 46.33: What happened to his remaining batchmates in Brazil University? “Second generation of students in Computer Science in Brazil”
  • 48.46: Why he *didn’t* go for the Brazil government grant to go to US PhD program
• .Chapter 7: 51.02-54.45: Immigrating Between Academia and Industry, 2008. 
  • 51.02: Finishing PhD: Academia or Industry? His regrets at not having joined a startup after PhD, a startup (Meraki) that was acquired for $$$. Joining Brown University as a faculty.
  • 53.58: Leaving Brown University for MSR
• Chapter 8: 54.45-1.03.15: Perspectives, Retrospectives.
  • 54.45: Failures and rejections.
  • 55.45: Would he return to Brazil? What needs to change. 
  • 57.41: If he had grown up in the US, would his career have been different? The “in between” mindset, still wistful about architecture
  • 59.05: Always in difficult transitions in his life
  • 59.52: Brazil Government’s long-term investment in technology: the story of Embraer (the airplane manufacturer) and ITA and government investment

About the Narrator in this Episode

• Rodrigo Fonseca, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research.
  • Former Associate Professor (with tenure) at Brown University.
  • USENIX NSDI Test of Time 2017, Stood First in among 42000 candidates for the entrance examination to UFMG Brazil in 1990s.
  • Research Areas: Networking, Systems, Distributed Systems.
• Rodrigo Fonseca’s Immigration Journey
  • 1980s and 90s: Middle/High schooling in Brazil.
  • 1997-2000: BSc in Computer Science at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG).·
  • 2000-2002: BSc in Computer Science at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG).·
  • 2002-08: PhD at UC Berkeley in EECS.
  • 2008-09: Postdoctoral scholar at Yahoo! Labs.
  • 2009-2020: Assistant Professor and then tenured Associate Professor of Computer Science, Brown University.
  • 2020-Present: Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research.

Links

• Brazil Wikipedia Page
• New York Times’ A Brief History of Brazil
• Washington Post’s Brazil: A History of Political and Economic Turmoil
• BBC’s Brazil Profile – Timeline
• Stanford article on Technology Trends in Latin America

Upcoming Episodes

This is the first episode of a 4-episode segment featuring prominent and distinguished Computer Scientists all of whom immigrated from Brazil, and all of whom spent significant time in both industry and academia.

We also recommend you listen to the Lead Episode for Brazil (Episode 5), and the full interviews with Rico Malvar (Episode 6) and Dilma da Silva (Episode 7).

• Credits
  • Music Credits for Podcast
  • The caption picture at top of page is of the Cherry Blossoms on University of Washington Campus in Seattle. Pic taken by Indy Gupta.

The Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast is available for free on your favorite devices & apps: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and many more!