Janne Lindqvist is a new Vice Director of HIIT

Janne Lindqvist

After a longish break HIIT has again two Vice Directors. The HIIT Board elected in their meeting on 7th of October 2020 Janne Lindqvist to be a new Vice Director of HIIT. Docent Patrik Floreen will continue as a Vice Director of HIIT representing University of Helsinki and professor Janne Lindqvist will represent Aalto University.

Janne Lindqvist, where do you come from?

I have lived in multiple locations in Finland, US and UK. I received my DSc degree from Helsinki University of Technology and continued as a post-doc with Carnegie Mellon University Human-Computer Interaction Institute, which is part of the School of Computer Science.

Year 2011 I joined the faculty at the the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University as a research professor and started 2013 on the tenure-track.

January 2020 I joined Aalto University as an associate professor of computer science and was also appointed as the director of Helsinki-Aalto Institute for Cybersecurity HAIC.

What is your biggest achievement as a researcher?

My greatest achievements definitely are graduating seven PhDs and the advising and mentoring of tens of MSc and BSc students so far. I am very proud of my students and what they have achieved.

What do you expect from your new job as Vice Director of HIIT?

I expect to be able to serve and be useful to the wider HIIT community both at Aalto University and University of Helsinki.

What do you want to promote in HIIT?

One of the greatest challenges we face in computer science world-wide, but especially in Finland is the underrepresentation of women at all levels and especially in the top jobs in CS academia. I want to promote women at all levels so that our future leaders in computer science are as likely to be women and men.

Another challenge not well understood in Finland are two-body situations when hiring new faculty, and this can lead to Finland not able to recruit and retain talent we otherwise might be able. I would like to see HIIT to help transform this situation.