This is a conversation with Dr. Kevin Leach, a tenure-track professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University who studies system security, human factors in software engineering, and conversational Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Leach's homepage: https://kjl.name/

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Timestamps: 

[1:00 - 7:30] First computer interaction, early internet

[8:00 -  13:00] College, research interests, internships, freedom of research

[13:30 - 31:00] Setbacks, imposter syndrome, research diversity, each failure is a story

[32:30 - 40:00] Security arms race, human decision-making in security, program instrumentation

[41:00 - 51:30] Using fMRIs and fNIRS to assess brain activity during programming and English prose tasks

[53:00 - 1:03:00] AI explainability, simplicity vs. complexity, intuitive explanations make good research

[1:04:30 - 1:15:30] Research as the repeated application of creativity, brainstorming for new research problems, managing time

[1:15:30 - 1:17:00] Advice

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Music Credits:

Spring Flowers by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/