Interview "Extending the limits of our curiosity with the help of technological tools."

Prof. Zeynep Akata has been heading the newly founded Institute for Explainable Machine Learning since January 2024. Her research focuses on developing explainable machine learning models for vision and language tasks. From building an institute from scratch to fostering creativity and tackling challenges in the fast-paced world of machine learning, Prof. Zeynep Akata shares her insights, aspirations and personal journey in this compelling interview.

ZA: I started in the position as Director of the Institute for Explainable Machine Learning on January 1^st 2024. My institute is a part of both the Computational Health Center and Helmholtz AI.

ZA: The most exciting aspect is the prospect of being able to build an institute from scratch. In addition to supervising my own research group with PhD students and postdocs, now I can add independent groups to my institute and guide them for their next steps. Now it doesn’t feel like there is any considerable limit for my personal and professional growth. I am sure this process will not be an easy one but I am looking forward to tackling this challenge and observing the growth of the seeds that I’ll be planting over the years.

ZA: The domain knowledge of medicine at Helmholtz Munich fascinates me. If one would like to do research on cancer, diabetes, environmental health, or others, Helmholtz Munich is one of the best places to be, because of the access to data and access to talents. The more I discover Helmholtz Munich and all the domains that are being studied here, the more fascinated I get to be honest. Helmholtz Munich is huge! I have never worked for such a huge institution before. I am looking forward to all of the opportunities that I will keep on discovering while being a part of this wonderful association.

ZA: One of my goals is to build a safe space, a suitable environment where ideas can blossom, where young researchers would want to come, join us and fascinate us with their creativity. I would like to take part in creating a hub for machine learning researchers who are interested in applying their research findings to different application domains related to health and environment, make these technologies explainable such that they are more easily accessible to the user. My personal goal is to discover the different ways in which our research can be useful for the public good. 

ZA: One of the biggest challenges is also one of the biggest advantages of working in my domain of machine learning (ML). ML models get more and more capable and more and more general in an extremely rapid pace. This opens tremendous opportunities in which one can make impact in the real world by just adapting existing methods to various data domains. These domains could be medicine, environment, earth observation, etc. It is very exciting and rewarding to discover so many new venues for research so rapidly. This is one of the aspects of ML that keeps me going. However, this fast-paced progress in technologies can cause constant stress in the workplace because there is always a risk of missing out so there is no time to waste. This affects not only me as a researcher but also my research staff so we are in a constant battle in keeping our reserch productive, our workspace psychologically safe and also everyone motivated.

ZA: I’ve had many formative experiences in my career. I lived in Istanbul, Bonn, Grenoble, Saarbrucken, Berkeley, Amsterdam, Tübingen and now in Munich. This means I moved a lot, and I met many people, peers, supervisors, students who have all affected me in their own ways. I had plenty of experiences concerning racism and sexism in my career, but I also had plenty of experiences feeling pleasure and joy doing my work. I got nervous, angry, felt helpless many times but I felt liberated, empowered as well. I feel lucky to have been given the chances that I had been given to succeed. While learning to survive and be successful, I also effected junior people both positively and negatively, I am sure. My path until arriving in Munich wasn’t an easy one but now when I look back at my journey so far, I feel grateful that it has been an extremely interesting journey overall.

ZA: My family, especially my 2-year-old son, is a major source of happiness in my life. I believe that staying in the workforce, doing my research as best as I can sets an excellent precedent for him. This thought gives me strength and motivates me not only to do my duties at home but also at work. One hug from him means the world to me, it takes away all my stress and makes me forget my struggles.

Regrettably I don’t have much time for hobbies, but I like going out for walks with my family or friends. I like the feeling of the wind or rain on my face, being in the nature in general. It doesn’t matter which activity I am engaged in as long as I am outside. We work indoors sitting all the time, so whenever I have the opportunity, I try to be outside. Munich and its surrounding have lovely spaces to offer for this, I feel lucky for living in this beautiful city.

ZA: My grandmother sent one of my drawings at the age of 3 to a national competition for children’s art in Turkey and I came first. Consequently, a picture of me during the prize ceremony with the other awardees appeared at a national newspaper. My mom kept a copy of the newspaper, and I can tell that the picture looks quite funny with me looking considerably more confused than the other two children.

Latest update: March 2024.