We at EJN are pleased to introduce Dr Panayiota Poirazi as the next scientist for our series of Women in Neuroscience (Helmreich et al., 2017). We began this series to bring visibility and recognition to women scientists in our community (Helmreich et al., 2017); you can find all of the previous profiles here.

We have been fortunate to have Dr Poirazi serve as a section editor at EJN for over 6 years, Dr Poirazi served as a Guest Editor for an EJN Special section on Computational Neuroscience, and she has been an active participant in the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) since 2004.

Here is a brief description of Dr Poirazi's training and career from her executive CV.

Panayiota Poirazi (b. 1974) started out as the youngest principal investigator at IMBB FORTH, in 2002. She joined IMBB with less than 2 years of postdoctoral experience (in Greece), where she moved upon completion of her graduate studies in the US (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1996–2000). She was promoted to Associate Researcher in 2008 and in 2014 she became a Research Director, a position that she holds until today. She leads the Dendrites lab (www.dendrites.gr) at IMBB-FORTH, whose mission is to unravel the role of dendrites in complex brain functions. Her lab is one of a handful in Greece that use computational modelling approaches to study brain function. In the last few years, she has expanded her research activities to include behavioral and in vivo imaging experiments in mice.

And a brief description of Dr Poirazi's research from her web site. https://dendrites.gr/

Neuroscience: Current research in my lab focuses on understanding how dendrites contribute to complex brain functions such as learning and memory. Dendrites, the thin processes that extend from the cell bodies of neurons, are equipped with non-linear conductances, providing neurons with enhanced processing, learning and storage capabilities.

Computational Neuroscience: We develop and use computational models of (a) single cells, (b) microcircuits and (c) large-scale networks that simulate dendritic computations. We use the models to study the contribution of dendrites in various brain functions, across multiple areas, in health and disease.

Experimental Neuroscience: Our lab has recently expanded its research activities to include experiments in mice. In close collaboration with experimental labs in Germany and the United States, we use in vivo behavioural and imaging techniques to probe the role of dendrites in behaving mice. Current projects focus on the role of dendritic nonlinearities in the prefrontal cortex and the animal's ability to exhibit behavioural flexibility.

Machine Learning: We build brain-inspired algorithms that incorporate dendritic properties, aiming to advance machine learning tools.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr Poirazi in April 2021.

EJN: What started you on the path of becoming a neuroscientist?

Dr Porazi: That started quite early when I was in high school. I was always fascinated by the brain—it houses the ability to think, to become, to be creative, to generate memories. How does it all work? It is still considered one of the greatest mysteries.

My first degree was in mathematics in Cyprus, the island where I was born. I wanted to study medicine and go into neuroscience, but there was no medical school at the University of Cyprus at the time. After earning my degree in Mathematics, I still wanted to get closer to biology so I went to the U.S. to do a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. That took another four years, and I returned to Greece, for personal reasons, a few months after I got my degree.

Do you think that moving back to Greece put you on a different career/science path than you would have been in the U.S.?

Yes, because going back to Greece without having done a postdoc made it very difficult to find a job. Moreover, there were no labs working in computational neuroscience when I returned to Greece, so I had to start from something else; I did a one-year postdoc in bioinformatics, which was trendy at the time and for which my math background was ideal. This postdoc led to my first tenure-track position, also in bioinformatics, and it took me almost 10 years to get back to computational neuroscience. I had to build a lab, secure funding, and become comfortable enough to return to what I really enjoy and what I was trained to do. This caused a substantial delay in my neuroscience career; I do not entirely regret it because the new knowledge and experience have proved to be very valuable. Another difficulty that stemmed from my relocation to Greece was the lack of colleagues sharing the same interests. During my sabbatical in the U.S. in 2008, I realized how much easier it was to talk to people with common interests, from the same background as mine, and how collaborations emerged naturally. I did not have that in Greece—for 19 years my lab was the only one in the institute that did computational neuroscience; it was not until last year that we hired another principal investigator. Fortunately, I have many great collaborators from abroad.

Do you have a favorite project or experiment?

Interesting question—it completely depends on the different phases of my scientific life. Right now, I'm very much into the idea of getting inspiration from the brain, specifically some of the dendritic features, and using it to advance machine learning. We want to apply information from the biological substrate to the artificial machine learning substrate with the goal of making more intelligent systems. This is a relatively new approach in the lab, and I am very excited about it. I cannot say that we have fascinating results yet, but we have promising results.

Where do you think neuroscience may be in 15 years?

I'm happy that brain modeling, the main activity of my lab, is recognized as a very important and emerging research technique. People are looking into theoretical neuroscience in general, simply because of the massive amounts of data that the new technologies generate. It is very hard to make sense of these data if you do not have a theory about it, or do not have the tools to process and synthesize large amounts of data. I think computational modeling and advanced data analysis are going to be the future, simply because of the complexity of the data and the necessity of these tools to gain a deep understanding of brain systems.

Beyond that, the great advances in technologies that we have witnessed in the past decade allow us to track and manipulate activity of neurons at the sub-cellular level, with high temporal and spatial resolution. We are also gaining the ability to manipulate very precise targeted portions of the neuron, perhaps even the dendrite. This was not possible even a few years back.

Do you have any advice for young women or men just starting out?

Based on my non-conventional career path—I started from math, went into informatics and ended-up doing research in biology and neuroscience—I think what is most important is to be persistent in what you want, try to follow your dreams and not give up. But also be ready to adapt to whatever situation you are currently experiencing, especially when you have any family or country limitations. Adaptability is an extremely important component of becoming successful in science. You have to seize the opportunities you are given and turn any situation into an advantage in ways that sub-serve your long-term goals.

Do you notice any differences throughout your career being a woman?

Yes, I did experience gender discrimination in my career, albeit not to a devastating degree. When I was in the U.S., in the biomedical engineering department, I remember there were not that many women and at the time, this was not even an issue. Now departments strive for gender balance in both students and faculty levels. It has been well documented that there are fewer and fewer women as we move up the career ladder, and in Greece, it is much worse compared to other European countries. For example, I am the only woman at the top level (research director) in my department. This needs to change.

I can tell you a story when I was about to be promoted from the level of an assistant to that of an associate researcher in 2008 (get tenure, in other words). When going over my achievements with my director, I pointed out that these achievements were made during a period when I gave birth to two children, one with a very complicated pregnancy. I thought this should be mentioned to the committee and taken into consideration. However, his response, to my great surprise, was negative. He said that we do not want to have excuses for your performance! You should defend your work, which is great, and once all is said and done and the committee approves your application, then we can say that you achieved everything despite having two children. I felt that it was unfair to be compared against my male colleagues using the same criteria, when pregnancy and motherhood demanded a lot of time that was taken away from my research. Thankfully, it worked out well but I still remember this experience.

So it's not incorporated into the broad picture of your career, or what you have to offer students or other faculty members?

No, at the time people were very conservative. The importance of diversity, not only for women but also for all people from different backgrounds and convictions, was not recognized at my Institute. More than 10 years later, it is still difficult to convince people to account for the fact that women and mothers have less time to devote to work. That this is fair and not some kind of favor. Many people still believe—although they do not express it as much nowadays—that these are just excuses. This is quite sad and frustrating. I am a strong supporter of diversity myself. I believe that people from diverse backgrounds have a different outlook on things, different approaches to problem solving, and new ideas. An organization can benefit from all of these. It is very important to support diversity in all possible ways, and it's very sad when you see that this is not the case at your own place of work.

Unquestionably, children are wonderful. That is why I have three. Having them helps me find a better work-life balance. However, the available time that we mothers have to devote to work is significantly less than that of colleagues without similar family responsibilities. Our priorities can also be different (Poirazi et al., 2016). Family almost always comes first.

You stayed with the science, though.

I love the science; it is my escape from everything else. It is an amazing world—working with young people, making discoveries, looking into unsolved questions. I find it both genuinely thrilling and satisfying. I also get a lot of joy by acting as a mentor to my students and watching them grow through the years, shaping their own opinions and becoming independent researchers.

I also like to find ways to help people distinct from normal scientific discovery—it could be mentoring, it could be designing new activities helping with diversity issues—all these important pieces that do not go through regular science channels. I pursue these activities via various organizations. For example, I am a founding member of the association ofERC granteesand a local chapter on Biology and Medicine in Greece. I'm also involved in an effort to set up a mentoring scheme through the ALBA Network, and I am an alumna of The FENS/Kavli Network of Excellence—of which I was the first chair. All of these organizations have activities to provide mentoring, outreach, and science policy advice to researchers.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

The importance of networking. When I was selected for the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence in 2014, I had not realized how important it is to be connected with my peers, people with similar mindsets and enthusiasm for embarking on our relatively first steps in science. The networking opened up new collaborations and increased my visibility. So that's a piece of advice I would give to young scientists—make sure that they have a network, try to reach out to people with similar interests and at a similar career stage—this is really important for their next career steps. Probably as important as having a good mentor, who has a more senior position and different experience than your peer network.

How do you spend your days now?

Sadly, I spend most of my time working at home. The nature of my work—which is computational—allows me to do almost everything I did before the pandemic using my home computer. I wake up in the morning and sit in front of the computer, stop for lunch break, and then finish around 7 pm. It's more than I would normally work on a daily basis, if I was going to my office. And there's no interaction with people that takes your mind away from what you are doing. It's exhausting, and I think it's exhausting for everyone. I look forward to returning to my office and regular working schedule.

Would you like to talk about what do you do in your free time? I know you have three kids, so it's almost an irrelevant question.

I have a wonderful husband, three kids, three dogs and three cats. It's a big, big family! What I enjoy the most is hanging out with my family and pets, going on walks, playing games together, watching movies together. I find it extremely relaxing. I also like traveling, which I have missed a lot these past two years; I have not traveled since January 2019 because of the pandemic. I'm looking forward to embarking on new travels very soon!

Is there place you want to go that you have not been yet?

Well, I have not been to Asia much, so I would really like to go to Hong Kong, or to Singapore, or India. I've been to a lot of countries in Europe but for me, they are not as mysterious as places in Asia.

How is Greece doing during the pandemic?

Initially it was doing extremely well. People were disciplined, they were scared, staying home, obeying the rules. Lately everybody is tired, and has the illusion that the ongoing vaccination has already eliminated the threat, which is far from the truth. People are not adhering to the government's instructions anymore and Covid-19 cases are rising. Vaccinations on the other hand are progressing extremely well. We are now—in May—vaccinating all ages down to 18 year olds. With the weather becoming warmer and the high vaccination rate, I hope that Greece will be out of the pandemic in a few months.

Thank-you very much for telling us about your experiences.

Thank you Dana for this interview! Science was not an easy road for me, but I'm very happy I took it, and I'm very happy with where I am today. I now work on what I love the most, trying to unravel the mysteries of the brain!

1 CONFLICT OF INTEREST

I have no conflicts of interest to declare.