Niharika Shimona D’Souza — Lean In Interview Series #10

Niharika graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering in 2016. At IIT Kgp, she secured a department change from Biotech and played an integral part of MT hall’s eastern and western instrumental group, debating, quizzing, open-soft and hardware modelling teams and had a brief stint at E-Cell and AUV. Since 2016, she has been a doctoral student in the Neural Systems Analysis Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University where she works on machine learning, and graph signal processing for computational neuroimaging. Her scholastic achievements include the Summer Research Fellowship (IIT GN, 2014), the Graduate Student Fellowship (JHU, 2016), MICCAI Student Travel Award (2018) and the IPMI Scholarship for Junior Researchers and Underrepresented Minorities (2019). She continues the KGP tradition of community engagement by serving as the Vice President of the ECE Graduate Students Association and an active member of JHU’s Graduate Association of women in CS and ECE (GrACE) and Women of Whiting (WoW).

1) How does it feel reaching where you are? What do you think when you look back at your life so far?

Often, we as individuals tend to hyper-focus and obsess over issues and shortcomings of the past or present- especially when things don’t go our way. When given an opportunity to look back on my cumulative experiences, I feel quite content and grateful to be where I am right now. It took a lot of patience, hard work and dedication, but I’m better a person than before for having gone through it.

2) How was your stay at IIT Kgp, and how did college help you grow as a person? What lessons or experiences you took back from your stay here?

If I were to summarise my response in one word — I’d say that the experience was transformative. Before attending college at Kgp, I used to be an under-confident, self-conscious and shy teen who hardly ever interacted even when addressed directly! The host of academic and extra-academic experiences I had forced me out of my comfort zone- time and again. Slowly, but steadily, this helped me develop essential life-skills such as self-reliance, patience and confidence. At the same time, I deeply appreciate the peer group, academic guidance and host of opportunities that I gained- All of which have had a tremendous impact on both who I am and where I am right now.

I’d say my main takeaways from the experience are:

1. One should try one’s best to gain a myriad of outsider perspectives by interacting with individuals both similar and dissimilar to yourself. Read- a lot. Reflect and rationalise, but be slow to internalise and form an opinion.
2. Never be afraid to stand up for or pursue something that you believe is right for you, especially opting for less popular or lower-paying career or life choices. Fitting into a predefined box society has ready does not automatically make it the right choice.
3. It is good practice to keep questioning everything- even oneself. Never be afraid to ask. In the long run, what one learns from the experience will far outweigh fleeting negative feelings of discomfort or shyness.
4. Try to surround yourself with the most creative and clever people you can find. This will go a long way in refining your capacity to think and expand your knowledge base.

3) Where do you see yourself in the next 5–7 years? What inspires you to pursue your dreams?

I naturally see myself as an academic researcher and an educator in the future. I hope to be working on and developing cutting edge technologies that would benefit the healthcare domain and improve people’s quality of life in India.

4) Which phase of life or experience of yours motivated you to pursue the profession you currently are in?

I was drawn to a career in research early on during my undergraduate tenure. I constantly looked for opportunities to involve myself in academic projects and internships during every summer and winter break we had at Kgp. Somewhere around my third year, I found myself drawn to the mathematical aspect of machine learning (ML) and signal processing. At the same time, I was especially inspired by the creativity displayed by people working in medical applications of ML and by its potential impact and implications on healthcare in the future. Consequently, I felt inclined to pursue higher education in a field marrying the two, i.e. computational neuroimaging. I thus find myself focusing my PhD thesis on developing novel machine learning algorithms that decode the human brain and study neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism.

5) How did your stay and experience at IIT Kharagpur influence and nurture your career goals?

IIT Kharagpur gave me a lot of opportunities to explore my interests in a variety of different and often non-overlapping fields. Being surrounded by talented seniors and peers, along with IITKgp’s strong legacy of industrial and technological giants was indeed quite overwhelming, yet exceptionally inspiring. This juxtaposition of the present and past of IITKgp inspired me to work hard to hone my talents, and set meaningful goals for myself. I’m fortunate enough to have obtained excellent guidance and mentoring from some of my professors and peers- which in turn gave me the confidence and technical know-how to doggedly pursue my ambitions.

To the present students of KGP- “You have a limited amount of time there and a host of different experiences to choose from- both positive and negative. You are tomorrow what you make of those choices today- so choose wisely”

6) What kind of hurdles did you face being a female? What are some of the failures you experienced or some challenging situations when you felt like giving up?

I transitioned from an all-girls strict Catholic school to IIT Kgp- with a 1/10 ratio of female to male students, which was quite a challenge for me personally. I constantly found myself to be the only female student during the labs and tutorial sessions. The skewed gender-ratio makes it a bit difficult to interact with people, especially in the initial few semesters. This is especially limiting when it comes to exchanging class material and information, or being involved in academic discussions and projects. I often felt alienated and left to fend for myself. At the same time, I value the experience and the lessons it taught me. Forced to navigate an unfamiliar environment, this left me a more independent and assertive person.

7) What is an opportunity you missed or the thing you regret during your stay in Kgp that given a chance, you’d go back in time and change it?

I regret not experimenting with more things that Kgp had to offer- both academic and extra-academic. If I had the chance to go back, I would definitely spend more time refining my mathematical, algorithmic and programming skills. On the non-academic front, I wish I had pursued my interests in sports, art and Carnatic classical music more (Would like to make a special note of SPICMACAY-IITKgp here. Their concerts will always be a cherished part of my Kgp experience. I wish I had been involved in their activities during my tenure in Kgp). I would also have loved to have had more hands-on engineering experience via technical societies such as AGV, AUV, KRSSG etc.

8) If given administrative powers, one rule you would want to change at IIT Kgp?

If allowed, I feel that students should be less constrained by a rigid departmental allocation based on JEE-ranks. In contrast, the US collegiate system provides much more flexibility to students- allowing them to choose their specialisation organically. This, in turn, tends to cater to the current demands of the industry much better. Additionally, much of the syllabi in several traditional departments happen to devote undue effort to teaching an outdated skill-set that is rarely of practical use. It is important to recognise that computing and programming have become a pervasive part of every major manufacturing/industrial sector and that time should be devoted to developing these skills irrespective of the department. I sincerely believe it would go a long way in preventing frustration among a majority of the students- especially during the already stressful placement season where they have to teach themselves data-science and programming from scratch.

9) Did you feel being restricted by the choice of your department at IIT Kharagpur?

To a large extent- yes. I ended up in a computing field that is quite divorced from what I learned in EE IITKgp. I definitely felt a little restricted when it came to the flexibility of choosing electives outside the department or the reception my Bachelor’s thesis received from a departmental committee hostile to the application area (largely due to its substantial deviation from core Electrical Engineering subjects). However, I’d like to focus on the positives — I was definitely fortunate to have had just the right guidance and mentorship from some of my professors, which did not deter my efforts. I hope things have changed for the better for batches hence.

10) How different does life get once you graduate from Kgp? What difference in attitude towards women did you observe after graduating from Kgp?

I transitioned from undergraduate to graduate school at Johns Hopkins in the US — both of these experiences have their own positives and negatives.

One of the major differences I found is the academic flexibility, mental health resources available and the professional treatment of minorities in KGP vs Hopkins.

One of the major positives of grad-school was that the academic environment is much less restrictive than in KGP with plenty of official resources available to those needing help. This goes a long way in keeping students motivated, productive and most importantly, balanced.

Coming to the latter point, as a woman, I get the impression that the treatment of underrepresented groups here is much more professional than that in most Indian universities and workplaces. One can find several more examples of high-achieving and extremely competent female professors, entrepreneurs and students, whose contributions are both recognised and valued for their worth. The first step that is almost entirely missing in most engineering institutions in India is recognising and acknowledging that there is a problem.

Finally, the thing I miss most about Kgp is the sense of community engagement and belongingness that I felt. This aspect of life has become much harder to find and much more effort-demanding after graduating from Kgp.

11) How is the outlook of women in professional life different from that of your peers at Kgp? Has your attitude changed because of the place you are living in?

First and foremost, I think that there is much more awareness in my graduate school about the fact that women are underrepresented in tech/engineering, and more importantly- why this is a problem that warrants attention and action. This is not to say that discrimination is totally non-existent here — but it might just be less pervasive in the setting that I find myself in vs Kgp.

The major difference that I found in attitudes of women I meet here vs my peers in Kgp is their confidence and assertiveness — which is crucial in any professional setting and needs to be developed early on.

Personally, I have been fortunate enough to have rarely been at the receiving end of discrimination at Kgp or JHU. I have taken some time to realise from conversations with several others how this is not the case for the vast majority. I hope we can foster a change soon.

12) What are your opinions on the gender bias that exists in professional life? Do you face discrimination of any sort based on gender?

Personally, I have been fortunate enough to have rarely been at the receiving end of discrimination at Kgp or JHU. I recognise that this is hardly the norm in most professions. However, most academic and industrial institutions are becoming more and more aware of the problem and are solidifying their efforts to reduce the gender gap. It is gratifying to see attitudes slowing changing in India too. There has been an increasing decline in discrimination and more acute awareness of the problem in the past few years- but there is a lot to be done.

13) Who is your role model, and how has she/he influenced you in your life?

I have been fortunate enough to have had strong female role models in my family in my grandmother, mother and aunt. Each of them set a high bar for me through their own academic and career achievements- and encouraged me to work hard to pursue my dreams. I believe this played a formative role during my early years, and I’ve always striven to live up to their ideal.

14) What is the one utopian thing that you would wish for in today’s society?

Deviating from the theme of the previous few questions, I wish each of us were treating the environment with more care. We need to act urgently to mitigate the current crises.

15) What is the one thing that the current you would like to tell your younger self?

I’d tell her to exercise much less trepidation in trying new things and to not agonise so much over choosing the unconventional and unpopular.