Note: My dear
colleague Veronika
Cheplygina, who got promoted to a full professor at ITU in April
2025, had her inaugural lecture on June 10, 2025. I was asked to say a few
words about her before her talk. The text below was my write-up to be prepared
for those words.
I came to know
Veronika because of her interview at ITU. I usually make an extra effort to go
to the faculty interview talks, because they are a great way to get to know not
just potential new colleagues but also different research fields. In the case
of Veronika, though, this wasn’t just about making an extra effort, I was like “I
have to see that talk”, because it was titled “How I failed machine learning in
medical imaging.”
Then, unsurprisingly,
Veronika got an offer from ITU, and luckily, she ended up at our research
group, DASYA. Shortly after, inspired by Veronika’s presence, more and more
people in DASYA started to openly endorse cats. I didn’t realize that we
had so many cat people in the group before. If ITU didn’t have “no pets allowed
on premises” policy, I might have suggested getting a DASYA cat to 4E.
We also have a
DASYA website that we almost never systematically update. The only time that
website was properly updated was when Veronika created a game for it, which was
a pub-quiz, where for each correct answer, you got a website-update-task to do.
It turned a very mundane TODO-list into something fun, and we got work done very
efficiently.
People from the
former CS department also know of the pub quizzes of Veronika, as she also
volunteered to prepare them for our department retreats. And every time, as we
did those quizzes, I was amazed by how well they were prepared. So, that is a
whole different unique creative talent that she has on the side.
For the last
part of my speech, I was debating between the two topics that are at the core
of my personal relationship with Veronika, which are the challenges of academia
and Gilmore Girls. I think for today the former topic is more fitting,
but in the spirit of Gilmore Girls, I will start with a movie reference.
In the movie The Meyerowitz Stories,
by Noah Baumbach, one of the characters used to be a promising piano player but
quit pursuing that professionally. At some point in the movie, he feels the
need to explain why he quit, and here is what he says:
“It was like
walking barefoot through broken glass to get a milkshake. I loved the
milkshake, but, you know, my feet were bleeding.”
That line made
me think of all the times I considered leaving academia. I technically left it
for three years and then came back.
I know Veronika,
you have also been there, because you very openly and generously talk about it
and the challenges that drove you to that point. One of those challenges is in
this profession we overly expose ourselves to other people’s opinions by design,
and that is for good reasons, because when it is done constructively, it helps
you grow, both personally and professionally, but sometimes it also leads to
other people undermining you and your hard work by calling it things like “not
real research”, which is also highlighted by the title of your talk today.
I am really
happy that you didn’t leave academia, because what a loss that would have been.
And I thank you
for working hard to create alternative paths for others in academia that don’t have
to have broken glass, or when the broken glass is inevitable, at least to be
there as part of the support system.
Big and very
well earned congrats!
Looking forward
to the talk and the celebration afterward!
