30 September 2022,
by Lito Michala, University of Glasgow
I am Dr Lito Michala and I am an early career researcher who works as a lecturer at the School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. For my visit I chose to travel to Greece to ICS-FORTH and particularly the Computer Architecture and VLSI Systems Laboratory (CARV). My work is in the space of Interest of Things and the exchange enabled me to explore a new direction that will better align with the SICSA theme of generating a new, more sustainable computing landscape in the near future. CARV has lately generated traction with their research in FPGAs as low power accelerators for data centres and my interest was to explore moving this into smaller embedded devices.
During my visit I met and presented my work to several academics, PDRAs and PhDs who work in directly relevant areas but also in the wider systems stack from High Performance Computing to Systems Infrastructure and Engineering. The visit was very productive with 3 EU proposals submitted and at least one more in development. I read very interesting papers and got access to local facilities that could enable collaborative student projects and summer internships. I have already invited one of my collaborators to speak at our local Systems Seminars and hope to continue working with them for years to come.
Other than the work component the visit was brilliant as the weather was nice, I stayed relatively close to the institute and was able to enjoy an office with a view of an olive grove. The food was excellent and quite a few of the evenings I was able to spent with new-found and old colleagues. I would advise any ECR to take Exchange opportunities if they can, as there is no better way to build collaborations than breaking bread together!