Women on the rise

There was a used student couch on one side of the room and papers strewn across every work surface. Then again, the 29-year-old Redi and I were in her professional office, where, as an assistant professor of computer science, she mentors students like me and develops top-level plans for the future of the visual experience. For Redi, the path from student to professor was not without its ups and downs, and was, as it happens, the result of the right set of circumstances.

The largest opportunities emerge from behind a smoke screen after seemingly endless periods of obscurity. During her Master’s project at the University of Genoa in Italy, Redi’s advisor approached her to test her interest in a PhD. “It’s not like I always had some higher ability to do research, but I liked it,” Redi says. “I was finally doing something explorative. On the other hand, I have to admit, I didn’t have clear ideas on what I wanted to do.”

For Redi, organizational stress during her doctoral years hid what would later prove to be a productive chapter in her ever-evolving career in academia. Of her PhD supervisor, Redi joked, “I always thought he needed a secretary.” A more sober analysis of the situation was that the quality of her publishable work was not of interest to her PhD supervisor. “He needed a student because they needed some workforce in the lab.”

Her tumultuous PhD years were buoyed by external experiences and, in particular, a professional guide. Two internship in the Netherlands, one at Philips and one at TU Delft, gave her a valuable perspective on her force in research. “Every opportunity to leave was great for me,” she recalls. “It was pretty tough, my PhD. I was really alone, left by myself, except for this one person from Philips who supervised me.” That person was Professor Ingrid Heynderickx, whom Redi openly cites as her mentor.

By the end of her PhD period in 2010, the University of Genoa recognized Redi’s work with the award for the best PhD thesis in the ICT domain. Ever playing down her strengths, Redi says, laughing: “I don’t know exactly how they did it, but they decided that mine was the best.”

After finishing her PhD research in December 2009, Redi was waiting to defend her dissertation the following April. In the meantime, she attended a conference where Prof. Heynderickx suggested that she apply for an open assistant professorship position in her department. “I was like, I don’t even have my title yet!” Redi says.

Having been guided by her mentor through the academic maze, Redi is taking well to her role as an assistant professor at TU Delft. She will soon be teaching a seminar on Interactive Intelligence, co-teaching Visual Perception for Displays and Lighting, and the Neural Networks course, which will be entirely hers next year.

The old adage goes: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Redi is seemingly the proof that even the largest lemon can morph into new possibilities. Despite the difficult path to professional success, and recognition, Redi has proven that she is afraid of no challenge: “I think in general that I like competition, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”