Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our January featured reviewer, Mariana Damova.
Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: The world has virtually changed in the last ten years due to advances in computing and digital technologies. However, it is important to stress the importance of quantum computing and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), for example, reaching autonomous informed decision making to the extent of blending human intelligence and behavior. In response, the scientific community has turned to modeling ethics and searching for explainable AI to enable better collaboration between humans and machines.
Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: I think that by the end of my career humans and AI will have achieved optimal collaboration, and the way people work, think, communicate, learn, travel, and select preferences will be fundamentally disrupted. Space will become a natural extension of Earth and a habitat for humans and human-like AI. I work on methods of knowledge modeling and representation, mixing logical reasoning with machine learning techniques in order to cope with large-scale inconsistent and incomplete data, for instance, Earth observation data for applications using AI. I am positive that these methods will be transferable to other relevant domains and applications for achieving better collaboration between humans and AI and for enabling better autonomy of AI-based devices and solutions.
Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: This question made me think of what is meant by "historical figure," and to me a historical figure is a person who has contributed to the growth of mankind. That is why I would like to name not one but three such figures--bright minds that have been acknowledged by their contemporaries and whose inventions have greatly impacted the world: 1) Aristotle, the father of philosophy, and the science of categorization; 2) Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance Man, who recorded all kinds of technological innovations in his notebooks far ahead of his time; and 3) Alan Turing, the inventor of the Turing machine.
Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: Actually, my domain--knowledge engineering--has led me to connect with quite a number of different subject matter areas, including business information, human resources management, historical archives, cultural heritage, natural language, customer service, Industry 4.0, and Earth observation, to name a few. This has allowed me to obtain an almost first-hand impression of the professional reality in these various fields, and I have consistently pursued the core of my professional interest to combine humanities with computer science and AI. But if for some unlikely reason I were not engaged with this, I would go back to my high school favorites: archeology and translation.
Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I listen to all kinds of music, but my favorite music is classical jazz.
Click here to read one of Mariana's highlighted reviews.