Caring Machines - 2nd December 2024

I was an invited speaker in an international symposium held in the Bayes Center, Edinburgh, to discuss on creating novel technologies that promote responsible research and innovation for AI and robotics in the heath and care sectors. The symposium was followed by a workshop focused on the same topic. 

Diversity and Inclusion session - ECSS 2023

I was a panellist in a session on diversity and inclusion organised by Jane Hillston at the European Computer Science Symposium on Monday 23rd of October. The participants were senior leaders from the Informatics and Computer Science Departments and Faculties from across Europe. As a member of an under-represented group, I was invited there to talk about my experiences (positive and negative) of inclusion to help leaders better understand what they should or should not do to make things better. 

https://www.informatics-europe.org/ecss/speakers.html

My talk

My name is Aurora Constantin. I am a lecturer in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1986, I graduated from Physics, from the University of Craiova, Romania. I worked as a teacher of Physics for more than 20 years. In the meantime, in 2000, I obtained a PhD in Physics from the University of Craiova. In 2008, I decided to change my career and I applied for a MSc in IT at the University of Glasgow. Then, in 2010 I continued for a PhD in Informatics here, at the University of Edinburgh. After 3 years of Postdoc positions, at the University of Bath and then here in the School of Informatics, in 2018 I got a position as a University Teacher. Recently I have been promoted to a lecturer position. I was awarded a Fellow of HEA in 2019 and a Senior Fellow of HEA this year. Other professional achievements include several prizes that I received during my undergraduate studies in national Physics contests and conferences, the best student of the year and a republican scholarship which was awarded to the best student in the Faculty of Sciences. In 2011, I was among the  winners of a Google Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities. Last year, I received a knighthood, a National Order of Cultural Merit for scientific research, from Romania's President.

I was around 12 years old when I was diagnosed with a form of progressive muscular dystrophy (MD). At that time there was no visible sign of a physical disability, and I think I was lucky that my condition allowed me to walk, to go to school, to university, and even to start my teaching career in Romania. The difficulties increased from one year to another and I had to struggle with the physical obstacles and lack of accessibility harder and harder. My career was in permanent danger as I did not know if the next year I would be allowed to work. That is because in my case it was not only the lack of accessibility which influenced my career journey, but also the fact that, until 1990, I lived under a totalitarian regime where people with disabilities were rather obstructed than supported to develop themselves. For example, they were often excluded from the mainstream schools or employment, institutionalised in state-run facilities often in substandard living conditions.

Again I consider myself very lucky to have escaped being pushed out of school or from my job in my first years. Sadly, the system and the society did not change immediately after the fall of communism. That made it possible in the early 90s for a doctor to send a referral directly to my employer to kicked me out of my job on the grounds that I was incapable for the teacher role. At that time, a law project was proposed, stipulating that teachers with some medical conditions (including neurological ones, like MD) are not compatible with the role of a teacher and hence must be excluded from the education system. Luckily, the law did not pass and I was saved. However, the employers continued discouraging people with disabilities to apply for a job long after that time. Few years after 2000, there were only three people with disabilities in the entire county (having a population of around half a million), two wheelchair users and a person with a vision impairment.

Although the episode with the doctor affected me, the most challenging moment which influenced dramatically my career path was in 1990. Then, having opened the opportunities to apply for a lectureship at a university (which was not possible before in communism) I had to give up when I realised that the lack of accessibility would not allow me to work there. I had even covered most of the exam topics when I had the idea to visit the university and try to see if I can manage. It was extremely difficult for me to accept the truth and make a decision. I applied instead for a teacher position in high school where the environment allowed me to work on the ground floor. I did my PhD in Physics and hoped that one day the infrastructure would change and I would have accessibility to be able to embrace an academic career. Unfortunately, that did not happen, so 20 years later, I decided to leave my job in Romania and go to Scotland to start a new career in Informatics.

It might have appeared that my disability had a negative impact on professional journey. But this is not quite right. After the first signs of my condition appeared, I became increasingly aware that I had no chance to succeed in my life without learning/working very hard. So my MD did not allow me to be lazy. It also helped me develop resilience, adaptability, perseverance and creativity to face the barriers! It forced me thinking how to turn the impossible into “I’m possible” countless times.  I could say it helped me find that inner power to move forward.