Look Who's Talking!

M. Bernardine Dias. Aspiring, inspiring, and ready to take on anything, newly appointed Robotics faculty member M. Bernardine Dias shares her work, life, and passions.

Degrees: Bachelor of Arts (liberal arts) with dual major in Physics and Computer Science and a minor in Women’s Studies; Masters in Robotics; Defended my Ph.D. in Robotics on January 7, 2004.
New Job Title: Special Research Faculty, Robotics Institute
Age: 29
Goal: To get some of the best motivated, educated, and brilliant people here to spend some of their energy and thoughts on how to innovate technology to make the world a better place for the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid—the poorest people. If I can make at least a few lives better because of my efforts, I will be happy.

Can you tell me a little about yourself? Let’s start with where you’re originally from and your background.
I’m from Sir Lanka. I was born and raised there, second of six children. I came to the US when I was a little over 19, to do my undergraduate degree. It was the first time I left home, so it was quite an adventure! [Laughs]

What sort of research are you into?
That’s a complicated question. I’ve done all sorts of robotics research because when I came here, I didn’t know anything about robotics, so I wanted to get a better feel for the field of robotics. I was very excited because it’s such a new and exciting field, and you really feel like you’re a part of designing the future. That, to me, is one of the biggest excitements about being in robotics.

I’ve worked on a lot of different projects. My thesis work is on getting groups of robots to work together: so if you have a complex mission that robots need to work together to accomplish, the question arises how do you decide who is going to do what, and when, etc. To figure this out, we have an approach in which you create a virtual economy. The robots are traders in this economy, and the tasks to be done are the commodities they trade, and the robots have virtual money, and they hold auctions, etc. and that’s how they decide who’s going to do what. That’s basically my dissertation. But as faculty, my long-term goal, and what I’m mainly interested in is how innovative technology can play a role in sustainable development. So part of the reason I was hired was to start this new program where we build partnerships with developing communities around the world, different impoverished neighborhoods, and look at how we can help with technological tools to empower them to come up with their own solutions, etc. It’s kind of a newly emerging field of research, which is what I’m mostly interested in.

Do you currently teach any classes?
I taught a class called ICT4B last semester. It’s “Information Communication Technology for the 4 Billion people at the bottom of the economic pyramid”. So half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day, and we were really trying to give people a feeling for what it’s like to live that kind of life, what differences can we make with technology, etc. It was kind of an experimental class we taught, and we’ve gotten a lot of interest in it—I taught it with Rahul Tongia and Raj Reddy from here, and then three professors from UC Berkeley—it was a videoconference class, and we had students from both universities.

What’s your favorite thing about CMU?
I think my favorite thing is how easy it is to work with people from many departments—so interdisciplinary work is very easy. There’s very much a feeling of cohesiveness that you don’t find in other places. I’ve been to several other universities, and there’s a lot more competition in other universities as prestigious as Carnegie Mellon. Here, you can walk into someone’s office, and they’ll actually tell you about somebody else’s research in a positive way. There are so many brilliant people here, it’s amazing! If you talk to anybody here, you’ll learn a lot, and they aren’t very arrogant about it; there’s a lot of respect, and a lot of effort to work with people across boundaries. I think that’s where the future is—breaking out of the boundaries we’ve created for ourselves—“this is physics,” “this is engineering,” “this is computer science”—there are just so many things that we can do across these fields that we can benefit from each other, and breaking these boundaries is what’s going to help us to come up with new and creative innovations.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
5 years? Wow, that’s a long time—I’ve kind of realized that you can never plan that far ahead! [Laughs]
But, let’s see…in 5 years, I hope to be more established in research; I certainly see myself teaching more classes; I see myself in a position that’s in the middle of administration and academia.

What’s a day in your life like?
Hectic! [Laughs]
It’s actually very different on different days…I find that I plan my day, and then there are a 150 new things that come up demanding my attention, so I have to re-plan! But depending on the day, I will either work from home or come to CMU in the morning. Usually the morning is spent catching up with emails, and corresponding with all the different contacts I have to keep in touch with. Depending on the day, I might have to teach class or meet with students, faculty, or staff.
I make a lot of time for my friends too—that’s very important to me. People are very important to me, and so I usually have lunch or dinner (or both) with friends, and then in the evenings sometimes I try to do something fun. I love to dance, so I’ll either take a dance class or go dancing or hang out with friends. Most recently my evenings have been spent working, but that’s life! [Laughs]. I used to take Salsa classes on Wednesdays, so that forced me to dance at least once a week. I hope that will continue. I’d like to dance more Tango too. And I also do Sri Lankan dance performances. I’m thinking of teaching that too, so maybe I’ll try that. I’ll be traveling a lot this semester though, so I don’t know how things will work out—we’ll see :-)

How long have you been dancing?
I studied Sri Lankan dance for 8 years when I was in school. Then I gave it up for about 4 years, maybe longer. Then I came to the US, and when I was an undergrad, I was the only Sri Lankan on campus, and I felt that I needed to share my culture with other people, and so I started dancing again. That was the first time I’d really done my own choreography. I love to dance, and I love all kinds of different dances…so I tend to do more fusion-type dances now, where I infuse other dance forms I’ve learned…but it’s still mostly Sri Lankan.

What advice would you give to undergraduate women thinking about going into research in technology fields?
I’d say if you want to do it, you should really go for it. I think in life, a lot of people will tell you not to follow your dreams—there are a lot of people who are afraid to follow their dreams—but I think in life in general, you should pick something you are really passionate about, and go after it. Life is too short not to be passionate, and not to wake up every morning feeling energetic and wanting to go out there and do whatever it is you love doing. So if you love doing research, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’ll make it. Find mentors, find people who are like you, find good friends who will help you through the hard times—because no matter what you pick, there will be hard times. It’s important to actively look for mentors because they don’t always come knocking on your door…unless you’re lucky!

Do you think the image of the stereotypical computer scientist is changing?
I hope so! I really hope so because I never saw myself as that image. I don’t know—stereotypes are kind of funny things because they have this partial truth in them, but the danger is people believe them to be the entire truth. I think it’s important for people to feel free to be who they are. There’s nothing wrong with the stereotypical “geek,” or computer scientist, if that’s who you are. But it shouldn’t be a requirement to be in computer science!

Let’s shift gears a little now…onto the more personal side…from all the experiences you’ve had at CMU, what’s been your most cherished memory?
I’ve had a lot of great memories at CMU, but in some ways, the most cherished memory for me here has been the whole process of getting this job, and maybe my job talk. That day was pretty incredible for me, because my family was here, which was great, and I was able to stand up in front of a group of people I really admire and talk not only about the research I’ve done in robotics (which to me, is pretty incredible because when I came to the US at the age of 19 ½, I’d never even really used a computer very much), but also to be able to share my dream of the direction in which I think we should go in research and where we can make a difference. It was amazing to be able to stand there and talk about my passion—and that they believed enough in me and in my vision to give me the job right out of grad school. That to me has been the pinnacle of my career here. I’m very thankful everyday about how blessed I am.

What hobbies or passions do you have outside of work?
I love to sing and dance, I like reading; I love cooking—I’m a really good cook! [Laughs].
I really enjoy people. I enjoy meeting new people, hanging out with good friends, discussing philosophy and life. I think there’s just so much you can learn from different people. I enjoy drawing, I draw once in a while—I haven’t done that in a while. I love taking walks, except when it’s icy! I don’t like the cold very much!

If you didn’t go into academics or administration, what would you have done in another life?
I think I would have danced. Maybe have my own dance troupe, and do very unique stuff—a fusion of all kinds of world dances. Either that, or medicine—maybe a doctor :-)

Complete this sentence: when the going gets tough I…
The going is always tough! [Laughs]. No, I keep going…you know…you have to!
It’s also a good time to stop and think – it is very important to make time to think in life – I am certainly a thinker; I think a lot about everything :-)

When’s your birthday?
December 1st.

Are you married and do you have and children?
No and no [Laughs].

How does it make you feel to be so much younger than your co-workers, yet only a few years older than the students you teach? Does it hinder you, or does it encourage you to work harder?
I don’t think age has ever really bothered me in my career—I’ve always been in mixes of groups where I was much younger or not that much older, or whatever it is. I’ve never been fazed by age. I think the harder thing is that I was a student here, and so people sometimes still have this impression that I’m still a student. But to be honest, at Carnegie Mellon, it doesn’t really matter, because as a student I did so many things that at most other places you wouldn’t be able to dream of doing as a student.

What’s your favorite place in the world?
Sri Lanka…but I’m biased! [Laughs]
More specifically, my favorite place is this deserted beach in the south of Sri Lanka where you can sleep under the stars and watch wild elephants walk by to their water-hole – it is incredibly serene and beautiful.

What’s your favorite food?
Crab curry and stringhoppers! I love seafood in general :-)

What’s your favorite holiday or festival, and why?
I think it’s Christmas. I grew up Catholic, and still am Catholic. What I love most about Christmas is that it was always a time for family, getting together, and it was a time for thinking about things that were bigger than your life. For me, it’s very much a spiritual season, it’s also a season for giving. So it was always fun finding different ways to be extra nice to people, giving people gifts…it’s not only just friends…for my family, it was always finding a poorer family that we could share with, or something like that. To me, it’s always this time where I just really am reminded of how good humans can be, and how beautiful love and giving is. It’s a time when I’m usually very happy.

What motto or philosophy do you live life by?
Follow your dreams and be passionate in all you do.

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