Sügis tõi TalTechi hulga uusi professoreid. Küsisime kõigilt neli küsimust. Rahvusvahelise taustaga töötajate vastused jätsime rahvusvahelisse keelde usus, et lugejad mõistavad: TalTechis on töötajaid 51 riigist ja 61% teadusartiklitest valmib rahvusvahelises koostöös.

Pawel Sobocinski

Tarkvarateaduse instituut, tarkvara usaldusväärsuse professor

Esimene tööpäev: 01.09.2019.

Please introduce yourself in five sentences.

I was born in Poland and grew up in Australia. I fell in love with Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Sydney. I did my PhD in Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. My last job was as Associate Professor at the University of Southampton in the UK. When I'm not at work or thinking about work – which is rare – I like to experiment with cooking and participating in various hipster activities such as tasting craft beer or going to the barber shop.

What kind of knowledges and experiences you bring to TalTech from your previous jobs?

In the last few years I’ve helped to shape a growing community of brilliant, young computer scientists and mathematicians who work on understanding various kinds of systems in a compositional way. A good analogy for compositionality is Lego. Because of their ingenious design, Lego blocks can be used to build anything from a simple toy to a miniature city or a life-size dinosaur. Similarly, many areas of science and mathematics – and computer science in particular! – can benefit from identifying their basic building blocks and methods of connecting them. Some guiding principles are given to us by Category Theory, a field of mathematics devoted to the study of common structures across diverse mathematical domains. Category theory helps us to understand the concept of compositionality, which in turn ensures that systems constructed using the basic building blocks are trustworthy and do not break for difficult-to-understand reasons.

What are your goals in your position in TalTech?

I am bringing the best young scientists in my area to work with me at TalTech. This is an extremely exciting time in my life: my ambition is to create a world-class group and make TalTech an internationally recognised hub for my research area. I will work hard to ensure that my group will not only create beautiful mathematics, but will also collaborate with local and international startups to develop our theories into state-of-the-art technology.

One surprise that you have had within your time in TalTech?

I haven’t been here very long, so I’m still discovering new things every day. One interesting thing that I’ve noticed in campus is that most larger buildings have their own cafeterias on the ground floor – I suppose that this will be useful during the long, cold, dark winter months, when it won’t be very pleasant to step outside! ■