What was your previous role before Behavioral Signals?

Post-doc research fellow at NCSR Demokritos. Also freelance ML engineer for several startups

What is your role at Behavioral Signals?

Director of Machine Learning, aka to lead the team that trains models that recognize emotions and behaviors directly from speech signals

What do you find most disruptive/ challenging at Behavioral Signals?

The fact that we are solving a hard problem: emotions are really hard to distinguish – even by humans – and it gets even harder to recognize them “in the wild” or at various setups and domains (calls, interviews, online content, etc)

What kind of work would make you excited to get out of bed on Monday morning?

The work that requires combining multidisciplinary knowledge and tries to solve real-world problems

Who are your role models and mentors?

David Lynch, Antony Bourdain, David Bowie, and Dimitris Saravakos

What professional mistakes have you’ve learned most from?

“Over-engineering” on a method, and losing touch with the final product, are probably the worst mistakes

What is the biggest technological challenge in Emotion AI right now?

Apart from improving recognition of emotions itself, to use the predicted emotions in new applications, in order to change the way we interact with computers, VAs, and robots

What is the biggest challenge for ML now? What breakthrough are you expecting in the future?

To provide not just accurate but also explanatory results. This will help people stop seeing ML/AI as black boxes and build trust towards ML/AI, especially in cases of content recommendation

What makes you happy?

Traveling, vacations, and my daughter

What makes you angry?

Dog shit. Overcooked pasta. Rice cakes. Vintage cars and motorbikes

What makes you dream?

Sleeping

What makes you get up and moooooove?

500 milligrams of caffeine

If you had a ‘warning’ label, what would it say in one word?

No need to warn anyone about anything

Can procrastination be useful?

I’ll answer that next week

Post-its OR whiteboards?

Whiteboards. All the time

Tea or coffee?

Coffee. Of course

Food you never get bored eating?

Mushrooms. Cheese

Book or movie you would suggest for someone to read/see?

‘The Conversation’ (1974), by FF Coppola, a movie about audio surveillance and how it becomes an obsession 🙂

Who are you going to tag to do this interview next?

Malvina Nikandrou