Dr. Fardina F. Alam is the Program Director for Data Science at the University of Maryland, College Park and a researcher working at the intersection of machine learning and computational biology. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Alam began her career as a lecturer in Bangladesh before moving to the United States to pursue her Ph.D. at George Mason University.

In this episode, Dr. Alam shares what it was like to leave behind an established teaching position, adjust to a new country and academic system, and become a student again in a research-focused environment. She discusses how her curiosity led her from a traditional computer science background into computational biology, where she began using artificial intelligence to help computers understand the complex three-dimensional structures of pro ...