Nilakash Das: The Offshore Engineer Who Became an AI Scientist

In another lifetime, almost six years ago, I was designing oil platforms and vessels. Little did I imagine then that my life was about change its course. I could feel the drift, my conscience plunging into an internal turmoil that the work I did was irreconcilable with the global havoc wrecked by climate change. Therefore, I just jumped ship after spending almost a decade in that field.

Around the same time, the real potential of artificial intelligence (AI) was starting to unravel. Rapid developments in deep learning, which had burst into public consciousness such as Alexnet(Krizhevsky et al. 2013), signalled the dawn of a new era. Algorithms were now capable of automating tasks that otherwise require the quintessential human perception. In-fact, I even tried some of my half-baked AI ideas in master’s thesis not to the amusement of my supervisors who were classical physicists.

I knew, in my heart of hearts, that a doctoral apprenticeship in applied AI in medicine, was the perfect opportunity to learn and to make a meaningful contribution to improve human lives. It would have allowed me to take a deep dive into the exciting world of data science. These are good thoughts to have. But why would a field as conservative as medicine would accept me when I have ‘oil’ on my hands?

In the summer of 2016, my co-promotor had advertised a position that he was looking for a PhD candidate to build mathematical models on spirometry (a medical test to monitor respiratory health). I had no idea what spirometry was, but that did not stop me. That was the only position I had applied that summer, and I was overjoyed when I received a call for an interview.

I clearly knew that there were candidates who were far more qualified. To ‘sell’ my engineering skills, I came prepared with a few slides on how to fit a non-linear model on observed lung pressure-volume loops (although I had no idea then, on the physiological mechanism!). I vividly remember that joyful moment when I received an email congratulating me! It had come after a long time of stressing about my future, and my dwindling finances. Years later, my co-promotor confided to me that he did not consider my CV initially as it was so alien to the respiratory field, only to have been convinced by a friend of his to take a second look as I had some mathematical skills. I thank that person whole-heartedly!