April 27, 2022 / Podcast Episode

Episode 34: Thamar Solorio Interview | From Mexico

In this episode: Interview with Thamar Solorio, Prof U. Houston. Renowned researcher in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. Immigrant from Mexico in 2005 (with PhD from Mexico).
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Episode Guide

In this Episode: Interview with Thamar Solorio, Professor of Computer Science at University of Houston. [LinkedIn] [Twitter]. Renowned researcher in Natural Language Processing. Immigrant from Mexico.

Topics in this Episode include: Growing up poor in Mexico during 1970s/80s/90s. Working after school, instead of attending college. How luck caused her to try out research. Living amid turbulent political times in Mexico in the 1980s and 90s. Difficulties in landing academic jobs in the US with a PhD from Mexico. Raising a family while trying to start up a career as an assistant professor. And advice for women researchers on how to negotiate salaries, how to build a network, and how to avoid impostor syndrome. And much more!

  • mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
  • 0.00: Voices in this Episode
  • 3.14: Act 0 – Introduction and Biography
  • 5.26: Act 1 – Early childhood, and schooling in Chihuahua, Mexico, 1970s – 1990s
    • 5.26: First generation college student. Earliest memories growing up in Mexico.
      • “Interested in puzzles, and very competitive.”
    • 6.55: First experience of computers. Enrolled in computer course, Apple Computers. Helped her not be intimidated by computers later in life.
    • 8.25: Started working right after high school. At a video rental company. Due to economic situation at home. 
      • “We didn’t have a choice.”
    • 9.47: Older sister as a role model to go to college
    • 10.02: When things broke down at the video rental store.
      • “I want a job where I can fix problems and then I get to travel”
    • 11.39: Parents sending their 3 kids to college. Parents getting divorced.
    • 14.00: Parents pushing kids to study – unique to their family or common to other families in Mexico at that time?
      • An example of boy being preferred over girls, in going to college
    • 15.30: Biases against girls going to engineering? Preference of boys over girls being sent to college – was it common?
    • 16.18: Wanting to go to college, but no money to do so.
      • “Because of those hardships, they made me value the opportunities when they came about.”
  • 17.44: Act 2 – BS Program at Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua, Mexico, 1996-2000 
    • 17.44: Starting BS in Chihuahua, and working part-time while studying
    • 19.22: Was it common to work while studying? (Yes)
    • 19.41: How did you choose CS? 
    • 20.55: How to get admitted into university? 
    • 21.40: No exposure to research in BS.
    • 22.39: The Story of Chance – How Thamar Solorio got into Research via a random event! Preparing to get a job after BS, and then accidentally attending a talk about a fellowship for graduate school. 
    • 24.07: Still wanted to work, but Mom didn’t want her to move to (dangerous) Ciudad Juarez.
  • 26.36: Act 3 –  MS Program at Instituto Nacional de Astrofısica, Optica y Electronica, Puebla, in Mexico, 2000-2002
    • 26.36: Move from Chihuahua (near border) to Puebla (middle of country), from sparsely populated region to more populated city 
      • (Apologies for the dog barking in the background)
    • 28.15: How many women in her BS and PhD programs in Mexico?
    • 29.23: Why so few (women)?
  • 30.18: Act 4 – Politics in Mexico, 1990s and 2000s
  • 33.42: Act 5 – Moving from MS to PhD, 2002
    • 33.42: Getting into Research
    • 35.13: Nearing end of PhD, what next-step career options did she consider?
      • “I always wanted to move to the US.”
      • “I did not get any interviews.”
  • 37.03: Act 6 – Immigrating to the US, 2005
    • 37.03: Applying for positions near end of PhD, moving to U Texas at El Paso as a lecturer. And applying for postdoc positions, and joining University of Texas at Dallas.
      • “Not a happy time professionally.”
    • 39.17: Second time go-around: Applying a second time around after postdoc at University of Texas at Dallas. 3 interviews, 2 offers.
    • 40.24: What was the major difference between the first time on the job market (after PhD in Mexico) vs. second time on job market after postdoc (in US university)?
  • 41.20: Act 7 – Assistant Prof at University of Alabama Birmingham, 2009-2014
    • 41.20: Having a baby in her first semester as Assistant Prof! 
    • 43.15: “Maternity leave in the US (academia) is non-existent.”
    • 44.57: What helped stabilize things after that hectic first semester as faculty?
      • “Dream job”
    • 46.36: Why did she work in the Natural language processing area? 
  • 48.20: Act 8 – Negotiating on the Job Market (Tenured Faculty at U Houston, 2014-Present)
    • 48.20: Was negotiating for salaries easier the third time on the job market?
      • “As female researchers, we tend to not ask for more.”
    • 50.07: Tips and Advice for listeners to negotiate for salaries.
      • 1. “Know the ranges”, 2. “Do your research (e.g., find salaries from Taulbee survey)”, 3. “Know what you need (break it down)” 4. “Ask for it” 5. “All reasonable demands will be satisfied by a department that wants you to be successful.
    • 52.46: How tough should one be in negotiating?
      • “Put a balance between how much the position will make you happy, and your needs.”
  • 54.31: Act 9 – Retrospective and Perspective
    • 54.31: Philosophy for handling failures and rejections
      • “Acknowledge your negative emotions”, “Don’t stay inside them; Move forward”
      • “If you don’t get rejected, you’re not trying hard enough.”
    • 57.48: Handing Impostor Syndrome. 
      • “My support network… I vent out… They are my rock”
    • 1.01.33: Other role models and mentors? 
      • “The ones that stick to me are the ones that are generous and kind and approachable.”
    • 1.04.45: The “intangible” characteristics of researchers that make a huge difference.
    • 1.05.39: Had you been born and grown up in the US, would your life and career choices have been different?
      • “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.”
    • 1.07.24: Constantly filling in cultural gaps in the US, having grown up an immigrant.
    • 1.08.17: How can we bring more girls/women into CS?
      • “Read the literature”, “Create role models”, “Project to all that anyone can be in this field.”
  • 1.10.13: Thank you and Ending
Featured in this Episode
Useful Links
Upcoming and Related Episodes

Look for our next episode, where we visit a new country in South America! Only 2 episodes left in Season 2!

If you liked this episode, you may also be interested in the Episodes on Brazil: Episodes 5, 6, 7, 8 featuring Computer Scientists from Brazil, all of whom spent careers in both academia and industry. 

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

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

Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign