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Hey, Charlie

June 1, 2019 by Leslie Prives

LINDEMER TACKLING BIG, HARD PROBLEMS

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Emily Lindemer credits her failures for putting her on the path she’s on—from a bachelor’s degree in computational neuroscience and computer science to a Ph.D. degree from a joint Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) program and then a dual career as a scientist in imaging analytics at IBM Watson Health and an entrepreneur and founder of Hey,Charlie, an app to aid in addiction recovery. In fact, she values her failures so much that, when defending her Ph.D. dissertation, she included a curriculum vitae of the failures and rejections she’d experienced. “It was important to me that people understand that this body of work that encompassed the previous four years of my life was a result of a million things that didn’t work out along the way,” she explains.

One of the first divergences from her expected path was opting to forgo medical school. “My grandmother was diagnosed with a type of dementia that is not Alzheimer’s when I was in high school, and I had this reaction of ‘Wow, I can’t believe that can happen to someone’s brain’,” she recalls. “So, I planned to study neuroscience and then go to medical school to help with problems like that.” A requirement of McGill University’s neuroscience program was computer science, which initially frustrated Lindemer. “I didn’t want to learn to code, but then I ended up being surprised by how much I loved it,” she shares. As a result, she chose to minor in computer science.

Read more about it on IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine is the first magazine to focus on issues facing women who study or work in IEEE’s fields of interest.

IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine strives to recognize women’s outstanding achievements in electrical and electronics engineering as well as enhance networking and to promote membership in IEEE Women in Engineering.

The publication also advocates for women in leadership roles and career advancement for women in STEM professions, and it facilitates the development of programs and activities that promote the entry into and retention of women in engineering programs.

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