Portrait of Effy Li, postdoc in the Database Architectures group

As a teenager, Effy was fascinated by her smartphone, much like many of her peers. But where others simply used it, she wanted to understand it. “Because I wanted to know exactly how a phone works, I chose to do a Bachelor’s in Electronic Engineering,” she says with a laugh. “I rather underestimated what that degree would involve, because of course it covered much more than just that.”

She started her degree in China in 2012. For her mother’s generation, going on to higher education had not necessarily been an option. For Effy’s generation, the horizon looked very different. She went on to the United Kingdom for a Master’s in AI, driven in part by curiosity about studying in a different education system.

From hardware to software

That move marked a turning point. She soon discovered that her real interest lay not in hardware, but in software. “I found computer circuits much less interesting than programming. I love the software side of computer science.” Catching up was not easy. Without a formal background in computer science, she found herself constantly working from one deadline to the next.

After her Master’s, Effy joined Microsoft Research in Cambridge as an AI Resident, where she worked on turning research ideas into prototypes. Yet it was the research itself that appealed to her most. She began looking for a place to pursue a PhD, and found it at the University of Amsterdam, where she was introduced to data management. That eventually led her to CWI’s Database Architectures group, where she now works as a postdoc. Currently she focuses on making data science systems better at using existing knowledge. “My initial idea of what I wanted ten years ago was completely different from what I eventually ended up doing,” she reflects.

Gender imbalance

One constant throughout her journey was mathematics. It also led Effy into a field still largely dominated by men. “During my Bachelor’s, only twelve out of 122 students were women. Because there were so few female students, I felt I had to work even harder. Another experience from that period also made a profound impression on me. I was part of a team entering a competition, and one of the team members complained about having a girl in the group. That made me even more determined to prove myself. I worked incredibly hard — sometimes even sleeping in the lab. In the end, our team won multiple competitions, and I became the team captain.”

These experiences stayed with her. During her Master’s, Effy began to reflect more consciously on the gender imbalance around her. “Part of me had always wanted to help improve society, and I would like to be a source of inspiration for other women in STEM,” she says, referring to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “I strongly believe that female students are less likely to apply to a programme if they see very few women in it.”

All-women committee

During her PhD, Effy saw examples of how that imbalance can be changed. Her supervisor actively tried to build a more balanced group. “When we were putting together the committee for my PhD defence, we said to each other: ‘how cool would it be to have an all-women committee?’ We almost succeeded: out of the five members, only one was a man.”

Effy believes things are changing. Progress may be gradual, but it is visible. “If I compare my experiences during my Bachelor’s in 2012-2016 with the situation now, I can see that people are more open to gender issues.”