Regina Barzilay Interview

Immigrant Computer Scientists

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.

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1. Regina Barzilay Interview (00:00:00)

2. Introduction and Biography (00:03:38)

3. Act 1- Inside the USSR. Early childhood days in Moldova, 1970s and 80s (00:05:54)

4. How Anti-Semitism was built into the educational and cultural system in Chisinau, Moldova (00:08:26)

5. Languages (00:18:11)

6. Political changes making a mess of life, 1980s (00:20:57)

7. Act 2- First Immigration: Moldova to Israel, around 1990 (00:24:47)

8. Re-starting life as an immigrant in Israel (00:31:17)

9. Act 3 – Re-starting University, in Israel, 1990 (00:34:41)

10. Discovering Natural Language Processing by forced random choice (00:38:15)

11. Love for travel! Story of the Madrid Conference trip, and not knowing English (00:43:15)

12. Act 4 – Second Immigration: As a Housewife from Israel to US, 1997 (00:48:05)

13. Multiple Stories on—Differences between 1st & 2nd immigrations: Moldova to Israel, vs. Israel to US (00:51:01)

14. Act 5 – Thoughts on STEM/Tech Diversity across 3 countries (Moldova, Israel, US) (00:57:45)

15. Act 6 – Shocking Breast Cancer Diagnosis and how it changed her life and career, 2014 (01:01:57)

16. Act 7 – Retrospective and Perspective (01:16:58)

17. Dealing with Failures and Rejections (01:16:58)

18. Dealing with Impostor Syndrome (01:21:14)

19. Alternate Realities (01:23:42)