Subarna Chatterjee — Interview #3
Subarna Chatterjee is currently working as a Post Doctoral researcher at INRIA, Rennes, France after finishing her PhD from IIT Kharagpur. Apart from various publications and a patent, she has received recognition through multiple awards that include the Google Anita Borg Scholarship and the Facebook Grace Hopper scholarship. She was one of the top
100 computer scientists across the world to attend Heidelberg Laureate Forum and was named one of the 10 Women in Networking/Communications That You Should Watch.
1. What motivated you to pursue a career in research? Did you always know what you wanted to do in life?
To be very honest, I knew very little when I took up Computer Science in my bachelors. It wasn’t a completely blind plunge though because I was anyway introduced to computers and programming since I was in the 4th standard in school. Starting off with Logo and then coding in BASIC was all that I knew. But, what I think played an extremely important point here was that my school (Julien Day School, Elgin Road) had really great coding standards and impressive levels of difficulty for school kids. From file handling to patterns to complicated string operations were all well-grabbed by the time I finished my secondary education. In fact, when I was introduced to C in my bachelors, I practically had to do nothing but mainly learn the syntax for the first semester, at least. But, having said that, I still did not know what to expect from a bachelor degree in computer science, let alone the deeper strata and dimensions of programming. Well, the plunge was worth it because at the end of my graduation, I was inclined for a masters!
My life has always been like this, sometimes funny! When I was offered to pursue a Ph.D. directly after my bachelors at IIT Kharagpur, I literally was clueless of how the term “Ph.D.” works! So, straight and simple, I refused and said “I want to do a masters, not a Ph.D.”! Taken aback by this unusual and unexpected reaction, I still remember my Ph.D. supervisor (who has also been super- supportive till date) saying, “For the first time I’m seeing someone who refuses to accept a gold medal and wants to settle for the silver”. Eventually, I started my journey of research on that note!
2. What is the biggest contribution that the years at IIT Kharagpur have on you as a person?
For me, its always an eye-opener in the first place. I discovered life as a bigger and deeper landscape. IIT Kharagpur shaped me into what I am today. Other than the regular research, its a blessing and a fantastic learning to meet people with perspectives that one would’ve never even expected to exist. As a person, it taught me that the best way to go ahead in life is to be my own critic. There’s nothing wrong in openly confessing that “I need to improve on this because I suck at it” and there’s nothing wrong in openly self-appreciating that “Hey, I’m really good at this compared to others”. Its worthy to mention that of course, I was also treated very well and received friends and mentors for lifetime!
3. You have won many awards, including the Google Anita Borg Scholarship. What impact did scholarships and awards like this have on your career?
Google Anita Borg Scholarship is one the very effective endeavors towards breaking stereotypes. In those 3 days of retreat, Google literally puts a notable effort that moulds one to believe that nothing is impossible to achieve for a woman, if tried hard. I think this is really important because this literally imbibes in you sheer confidence. It made me feel special, important, and worthy! It also paved the paths for me to receive the Facebook Grace Hopper scholarship, for being one of the top 100 computer scientists across the world to attend Heidelberg Laureate Forum, and one of the 10 Women in Networking/Communications That You Should Watch.
4. During your stay in Kharagpur, you were invited for various conferences including Google I/O and the Grace Hopper Conference. What do you think you learnt the most through interactions like these?
Google I/O is “the” conference that every tech-developer would want to attend to. What an eccentric place it is to be! Of course I am a huge supporter of Google, but I think I started to respect it more after visiting I/O. Google presents technology not as tools to learn but as toys to play! I
personally did some hands-on there and had fun. I actually got the feel of how “enourmous” and “scattered” Google is! My interactions with the Google engineers have been very impactful because I was able to retrospect more on my work and what I could do to improve! Google taught me that an innovation without implementation is nothing and is generally wiped away with time. It also taught me to do things that “really” matter — like things that do someone some good, however and whatever little it may be!
Grace Hopper Conference (GHC) was a cool and refreshing place! The best thing I like about it is the fascinating keynotes by incredible women like Kathryn Finney, Ginni Rometty, and Anna Paterson. Its like a blow of fresh energy that gathered close to 16K women at the same time, at the same place in 2016, and the numbers are upping! If I don’t speak about the tons of organizational swags that one is generally blanketed with at GHC, I should surely mention geographical diversity that I got to see and believe for myself. Its absolutely an electrifying experience to meet women from developing countries like Sudan, Nigeria, Iran, Tanzania, and Kenya, let alone advanced countries such as Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore and not to forget China and U.S. !! I see it as a productive opportunity that has educated me about the food, language, dressing habits, outlook, weather, culture, gender perspectives, (and even capitals!) of several countries.
5. The number of women in research still remains low. As a result, do you see a difference in attitude of your peers towards you? If yes, how do you overcome it?
A very good question that I always wanna talk about! Today, the number of women in computer science (limiting the scope to my domain only for the sake of simplicity) research is alarmingly low (mainly) because the number of women pursuing bachelors in computers is low which is (mainly) because the number of women taking up science, or for that matter continuing education after secondary, is very low! So, I believe, it is extremely important to encourage parents to break stereotypes and encourage their daughters to decide for themselves instead of them deciding for the girls.
In France, or to be very specific at Inria, Rennes, I completely like the fact that one achieves everything based on his/her merit and nothing else. In fact, my post-doctoral supervisor is a female and she is so well-treated along with the other female employees of the institute. Fortunately enough, I never received any gender-based discrimination as far as my work is concerned even during my Ph.D.
6. What do you love the most about your current work?
Its relevance with time. Nothing is more satisfying than to work with the state-of-the-art. There is very little scope of hypothesis and assumptions in my work as it is completely experimental and that’s what I like the most.
7. Where do wish to see yourself in 5–10 years from now?
Well, I’ll surely continue to be a system researcher, but I’d probably take on new responsibilities like supervising doctoral and master students. Overall, I’d like to see myself working towards more and more practical and feasible research problems with a socio-economic perspective.
8. What is the one big difference you observe in the environment of Indian colleges like IIT Kharagpur, and a place like INRIA?
I think there are many. If I have to pick one, I’ll may be say funding because the infrastructure that Inria is able to offer to researchers is really a great asset to them. Also, on the bare infrastructure, people (mainly engineers) are constantly working to develop them into potential test-beds. The scale of such test-beds is huge and the specification for the physical resources is very impressive.
9. If you could go back 5 years, what advice would you give yourself?
To build the habit of reading books outside my curriculum. Actually I was a book-worm when I was a kid and this habit of mine has faded away gradually with time and digitization. But I still remember what books offered me then and I really wish that someday I’ll once again have that patience to finish off a big, fat book and deliberately skip meals to achieve that!
