Episode 16: Impostor Syndrome

Interview with: Ten Immigrant Computer Scientists from Season 1 of the podcast. 

Episode Guide

In this Episode: Quick tidbits of advice! Ten accomplished and prominent Computer Scientists, from across academia, industry, and entrepreneurial world, discuss their approaches to handling the dreaded Impostor Syndrome, failures, and rejections in career and life. The Impostor Syndrome is commonly faced by a Computer Scientists when they doubt their internal professional skills and believe–either occasionally or chronically–that they may not be part of their community, and will soon be discovered as a “fraud”. This is a remix episode, featuring snippets of conversations from Season 1 of the podcast.

• mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
• 0.58: Introduction to the Episode
• 1.30: Nenad Medvidovic, Computer Science Professor at USC
• 2.54: Jelena Mirkovic, Research Associate Professor of Computer Science at USC
• 5.02: Dejan Milojicic, Distinguished Technologist at Hewlett-Packard Labs
• 5.55: Rico Malvar, Distinguished Engineer Microsoft and Former Director of Microsoft Research Redmond
• 7.49: Dilma da Silva, Computer Science Professor at Texas A&M University
• 11.30: Rodrigo Fonseca, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research
• 12.16: Soodeh Farokhi, VP of Nakisa and Entrepreneur of 2 successful companies in Iran and Canada
• 15.42: Fadel Adib, Computer Science Professor at MIT
• 18.38:  Amr El Abbadi, Computer Science Professor at UC Santa Barbara
• 19.24: Jelani Nelson, Computer Science Professor at UC Berkeley
• 22.38: End.

About the Narrators in this Episode

• Nenad Medvidovic (also, Episode 1)
• Jelena Mirkovic (also, Episode 1)
• Dejan Milojicic (also, Episode 1)
• Rico Malvar (also, Episode 5)
• Dilma da Silva (also, Episode 5)
• Rodrigo Fonseca (also, Episode 5)
• Soodeh Farokhi (also, Episode 9)
• Fadel Adib (also, Episode 9)
• Amr El Abbadi
• Jelani Nelson
• Danqi Chen

Useful Links

• Impostor Syndrome
• Soodeh Farokhi’s Personal Blog (referenced at timestamp 12.16 in this episode)

Previously on this Podcast

In case you missed it! Previously on the Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast

• Several anonymous narrators, from across many continents. (Episode 15).
• Our interview with Danqi Chen, Gold Medal winner at IOI (Informatics Olympiad) in 2008 (only woman Gold medal winner), and student in famous Yao Class at Tsinghua University. (Episode 14).
• Our interview with Jelani Nelson, “immigrant” from US Virgin Islands and creator of AddisCoder program in Ethiopia (Episode 13), especially his last segment on IOI data inequity analysis.
• Our third segment (Episodes 9, 10, 11, 12) on Middle East, featuring entrepreneurs and a famous academic family from Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt , starting with the Middle East Entrepreneurs lead episode.
• Our second segment (Episodes 5, 6, 7, 8) featuring Computer Scientists from Brazil, all of whom spent careers in both academia and industry, going To and Fro between Brazil and US, and to and fro between academia and industry.
• Our first segment (Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4) featuring Computer Scientists from Yugoslavia, A Country That No Longer Exists?
• Check them out!

• Credits
  • Music Credits for Podcast
  • The caption picture at top of page is of one half of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco-North Bay, on a stormy day, taken from Alcatraz Island. 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!