Profile
Erika Duriakova
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About Me:
I am a mum, an animal lover and a computer scientist.
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My Work:
I look for new ways to find and recommend items to people who might like them. These items could be anything from movies that people might like to see to books that people might like to read.
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In my work, my goal is to process very large amount of data. In order to process such large amount of data I need to write a code that can compute the task in parallel on very large and powerful server machines. This is called parallel programming. This idea is similar to setting up multiple desktop computers to compute the same task on a large data, where each computer looks at different portion of the data and together they find the answer I am looking for. The task can be done much faster with multiple computers than if I was just using a single computer.
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My Typical Day:
Currently I work from home. I start my work in the afternoon in the attic of my house. I check on my experiments and present the results to my co-workers. I also attend various virtual presentations from my co-workers to learn what they are up to.
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My experiments can run for days or weeks on large and powerful servers. So I need to keep detailed log with all the experiments I am currently running. Then I use various software to process my results. I then discuss this results with my co-workers. This discussion helps me to decide next steps I should take with my current research. Possible next steps could be, fixing a bug in my code, presenting my results at a conference or designing additional experiments.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would buy some supporting equipment for CoderDojo club for primary school in disadvantaged area.
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CoderDojo club is a great way to show primary school students how cool computer science really is. However in order to keep the students engaged, it is nice to have multiple activities planned. For example Lego Mindstorms lets students to first design a robot and when build, the robot can also be programmed to perform simple tasks.
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Education:
University College Dublin
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Qualifications:
PhD in Computer Science
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Work History:
Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Bell Labs, Trinity College Dublin
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Current Job:
Researcher
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
animal-loving computer scientist
What was your favourite subject at school?
Maths
What did you want to be after you left school?
Beauty Therapist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
No
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Habana Music
What's your favourite food?
Pizza
What is the most fun thing you've done?
I wa on a boat in the Pacific Ocean surrounded by a large group of wild dolphins.
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Own a horse, be able to teleport and go to space
Tell us a joke.
Q. Why don’t elephants use desktop computers? A. They are scared of the mouse.
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My Comments