Episode 41: Alternate Realities

In this episode: What might life have been like, if seven prominent Computer Scientists, had grown up in the US/Canada instead of in their respective countries (Israel, Romania, Mexico, Chile)? 

Episode Guide

In this Episode: Alternate Realities. If you’re an immigrant to the US/Canada, you might occasionally wonder, “What would my life have been like if I had instead been born and grown up in US/Canada?” I asked seven accomplished and prominent immigrant Computer Scientists (from academia, industry, entrepreneurs) this question. Featuring: Regina Barzilay, Tal Rabin, Ion Stoica, Rada Mihalcea, Thamar Solorio, Moshe Vardi, Ricardo Baeza-Yates. Remix Episode from Season 2.

• mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
• 1.21: Introduction to Episode
• 2.26: Act 1 – Regina Barzilay, Professor at MIT (Immigrant from Israel)
  • “People who grew up in one place connect to the palace in a different way than those of us who are replanted to these places.”
• 5.10: Act 2 – Tal Rabin, Head of Research at Algorand Foundation, and Professor at U. Penn (Immigrant from Israel)
  • “I would have not been me, had i not grown in Israel.”
• 6.31: Act 3 – Ion Stoica, Professor UC Berkeley and Founder of Databricks, Conviva, Anyscale (Immigrant from Romania)
  • “Growing up in Romania – I grew up in an open society, despite communism.”
  • “One good thing about communism… there were very few ways to have fun – two or three hours of TV, mostly news. So I read a lot. That shapes you.”
  • “If I grew up in the US, I would’ve been exposed much less to the world as a whole.”
  • “It was tough during communism… makes you appreciate things more, not take it for granted, makes you more resilient.”
  • “You grow in a country where it takes years to get a car. And it’s a big event!”
  • “The intangibles… environment and context which shapes you.”
• 11.13: Act 4 – Rada Mihalcea, Professor U. Michigan (Immigrant from Romania)
  • “I grew up under a lot of hardship… and I always saw the positives of it.”
  • “I wonder how the gender gap might have affected me.”
• 13.32: Act 5 – Thamar Solorio, Professor U. Houston (Immigrant from Mexico)
  • “If I had immigrated for my PhD… the path to my dream job would have been shorter. Because the opportunities would have been more easily accessible.”
• 16.27: Act 6 Moshe Vardi, Professor Rice University and winner of Gödel Prize and Knuth Price (Immigrant from Israel)
  • “My mother’s brother lost his wife and daughter in the holocaust.”
  • “There is a phrase in Hebrew – tough times create strong people, strong people successful times, successful times create weak people, weak people create tough times.”
• 21.12: Act 7 – Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Professor Northeastern University Silicon Valley, and Head of Yahoo! Labs in 4 continents (Immigrant from Chile)
  • “Maybe my career could have been faster.”
• 25.37: End.

Episodes Like This One 

This is a remix episode from Season 2. If you’re interested in hearing the full interviews with these seven Computer Scientists, they are available in the links below (see “Recently on Season 2). You may also like the Impostor Syndrome 2 Remix featuring many of the same guests.

You may also like the other remix episodes of Season 2 (see section “Recently on Season 2” below).

Stay tuned for more remix episodes coming up during summer 2022!

Featured in this Episode

• Regina Barzilay (also Episode 27), Professor at MIT
• Tal Rabin (also Episode 27), Head of Research at Algorand Foundation, and Professor at U. Penn
• Ion Stoica (also Episode 31), Professor UC Berkeley and Founder of Databricks, Conviva, Anyscale.
• Rada Mihalcea (also Episode 31), Professor U. Michigan
• Thamar Solorio, Professor U. Houston
• Moshe Vardi (also Episode 27), Professor Rice University and winner of Gödel Prize and Knuth Price
• Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Professor Northeastern University Silicon Valley, and Head of Yahoo! Labs in 4 continents

Useful and Relevant Links

• You may also like the Impostor Syndrome 2 Remix featuring many of the same guests.

Recently on Season 2

Season 2 featured 22 episodes where we visited 5 continents, and 7 countries. Check them out!

• Remix Episodes: [Pregnancy and Career] [Random Ways to Start Research] [Impostor Syndrome 2] [Comparing oneself to others]
• Anonymous 2 (Finale of Season 2): Featuring multiple anonymous stories and a hate mail response from the host [Episode 36}
• Latin America (Central and South America): 2 Episodes
  • Interview with Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Prof. Northeastern (Silicon Valley), Entrepreneur, Yahoo! Labs Worldwide VP and Leader. Immigrant from Chile. [Episode 35]
  • Interview with Thamar Solorio, Prof U. Houston and stalwart researcher in NLP and ML. Immigrant from Mexico. [Episode 34]
• Romania Segment: 3 Episodes
  • Interview with Rada Mihalcea, Prof U. Michigan, and stalwart researcher in NLP and ML. [Episode 33]
  • Interview with Ion Stoica, Founder/Creator of Apache Spark, Ray, Mesos, and founder of Databricks, Anyscale, Conviva. Prof at UC Berkeley. [Episode 32]
  • From Romania: Episode featuring 2 distinguished Computer Scientists (Ion Stoica, Rada Mihalcea). [Episode 31]
• Israel Segment: 4 Episodes
  • Interview with Regina Barzilay, Prof MIT, and Cancer Survivor. Double Immigrant from Moldova to Israel, and then Israel to US. [Episode 30]
  • Interview with Moshe Vardi, Prof Rice Univ, and Winner of Gödel Prize and Knuth Prize. [Episode 29]
  • Interview with Tal Rabin, Prof UPenn and Head of Research, Algorand Foundation. [Episode 28]
  • From Israel: Episode featuring 3 distinguished Computer Scientists (Tal Rabin, Moshe Vardi, Regina Barzilay). [Episode 27]
• India Segment: 3 Episodes
  • Interview with Pratima Rao Gluckman, author of book “Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech”, and immigrant from India, and leader in Silicon Valley. [Episode 26]
  • IIT Madras, Computer Science Batch of 1998: Interview with 7 graduates from that batch (comprising about 25% of the batch). 4 PhDs + 3 Masters. 3 entrepreneurs, 3 industry long-timers, and 1 Professor (host). [Episode 24, Episode 25]

In case you missed it | Season 1 

Season 1 featured 13 episodes where we visited 5 continents, and 7 countries. Check them out!

• Remix Episodes featuring Impostor Syndrome, Balkan Wars, Wars in Lebanon and Egypt, Industry vs. Academia, Computer Science in 1970s and 80s, Diversity and IOI, PhD and Entrepreneurship.
• 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 from Lake of the Woods in Mahomet, Illinois. Photography taken by Indranil Gupta.

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