Immigrant Computer Scientists

Episode 33: Interview with Rada Mihalcea, Prof U. Michigan. Stalwart researcher in Natural Language Processing. Double PhD (CS, Linguistics). AAAI Fellow. Creator of PECASE award for junior faculty in Romania. Immigrant from Romania to US in 1997.

Episode 32: Interview with Ion Stoica, Professor at  University of California, Berkeley. Creator, leader, and founder of Apache Spark, Ray, Apache Mesos. Founder of Databricks, Anyscale, and Conviva. ACM Fellow, SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award.  Immigrant from Romania in 1994.

Episode 31: Two distinguished technologists share their experiences of growing up in Communist Romania in the 1960s-1990s, of the 1989 Romanian Revolution, and of immigrating reluctantly to the US. Featuring: Ion Stoica (Prof at UC Berkeley and founder of Databricks, Anyscale, and Conviva, Inventor of Apache Spark, Mesos, and Ray), and Rada Mihalcea (Prof at U. Michigan, AAAI Fellow, Creator of Romanian PECASE Program). Topics include: Growing up in Communist Romania under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in the 1970s and 80s; Schooling and education system in Romania during 1970s, 80s, and 90s; Romania during and after the 1989 Romanian Revolution; Our guests' Immigration to the US (in 1994 and 1997 respectively); and Perspectives. This is the Lead Episode for the Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast's segment on Romania (first of 3 episodes on Romania.)

Episode 30: Interview with Regina Barzilay, Professor at MIT in the EECS Department, and a faculty at the MIT Jameel Clinic. Double immigrant from Moldova (USSR) to Israel (in 1990), and then Israel to US (1997). Breast cancer survivor. Winner of MacArthur Fellowship or “Genius Grant” 2017, AAAI Fellow, and first recipient of $1M AAAI Squirrel Award 2020 for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity. 

Episode 29: Interview with Moshe Vardi. Professor of Computer Science at Rice University. Winner of Gödel Prize (2000), and Knuth Prize (2021). ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, AAAS Fellow, AAAI Fellow, AMS Fellow, EATCS Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow. Member of NAE, NAS, and EAS. Topics include: Moshe's childhood and college years in Israel, Fighting in two of Israel's wars (1970s, 1980s), Computing Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, Comparing Industry vs. Academia, and A clarion call to the Computing Community to change the way we view ourselves. And much more! Immigrant from Israel in 1981. 

Episode 28: Interview with Tal Rabin, Prof CIS at Univ. Pennsylvania, and Head of Research at Algorand Foundation (blockchain). Ranked by Business Insider (2014) as #4 on List of "22 Most Powerful  Women Engineers in World". Ranked by Forbes (2018)  among "The World's Top 50 Women In Tech". ACM Fellow, IACR Fellow. Founder of "Women in Theory" Conference. Immigrant from Israel in 1994.

Episode 27: Three distinguished technologists share their experiences of growing up in Israel, of immigrating reluctantly to the US, of fighting in wars, and differences in culture. Three guests who include a Gödel Prize winner, 2 ACM Fellows, 2 AAAI Fellows, 2 AAAS Fellows,  a MacArthur (Genius) Grant winner, and a cancer survivor. Featuring: Tal Rabin (Prof, UPenn and Algorand Foundation), Moshe Vardi (Prof, Rice U.), Regina Barzilay (Prof, MIT). Topics include: Kibbutz upbringing, ancestry, persecution, war, language, culture, research beginnings that are chance, computing in 1960s/70s/80s, surviving cancer, impostor syndrome, and alternate life paths. 

Episode 26: Technologist and Author of book “Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech”. Discussion of her immigration journey from India/Instrumentation Engineering/cricket to US/Computer Science/STEM. And a discussion of how her book came about. And of key themes in the book.

Episode 25. Conclusion of a conversation with 6 Computer Science Bachelors' graduates from IIT Madras (Chennai), India, batch of 1998. A free-ranging conversation on the IITs, on India, on technology, and on life as Indian immigrants in the US. All guests are immigrants currently in the US tech sector, including startup founders and large tech companies. 

Episode 24. Season 2 Premiere. A conversation with 6 Computer Science Bachelors' graduates from IIT Madras (Chennai), India, batch of 1998. All guests are immigrants currently in the US tech sector, including startup founders and large tech companies.