Gema Parreño is for Spanish science what her name indicates: a jewel. An architect by training, in a plot twist of life, she is at 33 years old a firm promise of national programming. She stands behind deep asteroid, a network to detect the impact of asteroids on our planet. This project earned him the NASA award in the Space App Challenge.
Since then, he has won multiple awards and works on solving real life problems through the game of video games. We caught up with her, on the occasion of the Häagen-Dazs campaign with which they changed the name of the Cookies & Cream ice cream to theirs throughout the past month. And it is that, less than 30% of people engaged in scientific research globally are women, according to recent data from UNESCO. Various studies point out three ways to encourage more girls to be interested in studying science and among them is to provide them with female role models in these areas.
How does an architect end up collaborating with NASA?
I finished Architecture in the middle of the brick crisis and, although I really liked taking part in innovation and landscaping competitions, that business model ceased to exist. The thing is that to participate in them I had worked a lot with rendering software, 3D, etc. So, with a group of colleagues, we began to investigate the digital world and the startup world, and that’s when I began to become familiar with the world of programming.
Reinvent yourself or die, right?
Well, you could say that it all started by learning a skill that I needed to form a technology startup, but from there, it is true that I fell in love with artificial intelligence and data science and that ended up being the starting gun for what is now my career.
Why did you choose video games to start with?
We were very interested in making an interactive product. Technological but interactive. Our first project was a family video game for parents and children, to promote the theme of positive parenting and that mixed fun and routine reinforcement.
“A neural network is an algorithm that emulates the natural neuron”
It is curious because, from the outside, architecture and video games can be perceived as two very distant worlds.
I feel that architecture has given me a very solid base to create different things. It has a technical part of physics, linear algebra, calculation of structures… But it also has a very artistic part of composition, project creation, spatial vision and creation of spaces. All this, in the end, can be extrapolated to many fields.
I have to ask you: what exactly is a neural network?
It is an algorithm that emulates the natural neuron, that is why they are called neural networks, because they seem as if they were networks of neurons. For example, one of the many exercises I’ve done learning is a kitten classifier. You pass him a picture of an animal and the neural network tells you if it’s a kitten or not, no.
How was the process of suddenly learning everything about neural networks? It makes me dizzy to think about it.
As if it were an onion: by layers and levels of abstraction. In the end, it is about solving questions for which, each time, more knowledge is required. Of course, it is also important to enjoy it. I used specialized online courses, including Google’s Machine Learning Crash Course and Coursera’s, which are also well known within the community.
Ok, and after all that, how did you end up working with asteroids?
I am part of the Google for Startups community on the Madrid campus and one of the events it organizes is a hackathon [un encuentro de programadores en el que se busca, a través de su trabajo colaborativo, dar una respuesta a un reto o problema] from NASA. It is celebrated once a year with the problems they are facing: from life on Mars to how to collect water on the moon, including detecting the impact of asteroids. So it all started as just another exercise.
One more exercise that has come to Houston… Tell me about it.
Our project was selected first at the national level and the truth is that, for me, that was quite a recognition… But a month later we received an email from NASA informing us that it had been a finalist among the 25 most innovative projects in the world and in the top five for best data usage.
Do you know if they will use your project?
“When we talk about asteroids we think of dinosaurs but in a year there are many impacts of less than a centimeter”
I know that they study all the projects but I do not know the internal scope that it may have. In any case, I am happy with this alone because I consider that I have already added value to them.
How does Deep Asteroid work?
It is an algorithm that classifies and predicts the impact of asteroids using information about the chemical composition and its physical characteristics (color, speed…). This predicts the date and place of impact. One important thing is that, when we think of asteroids, dinosaurs come to mind but, in reality, throughout the year there are many impacts of these bodies that are less than a centimeter in diameter.
In other words, it is not that NASA raised this problem with you because it fears that it will impact one that ends humanity, right?
Sure, it’s that It is very important to predict the impact of these small asteroids because they have been in orbit around the Sun and allow fresh samples to be collected that provide a lot of information about the solar system.
Phew! Well, I’m calmer…
It is true that the most dangerous asteroids have a radius of up to 15 kilometers but there is no global emergency about it.
The last project you have worked on is the video game Mempathy, which uses artificial intelligence. What is it about?
It is a narrative experience consisting of a conversation in the stars between a player and an artificial intelligence. It is focused on dealing with the relationship between perfectionism and anxiety and leading the player to discover something about himself. This type of game, called “serious game”, is played a lot in the Nordic countries, for example.
What motivated you to choose the topic of anxiety?
More than the problem of anxiety, what led me to this project was the problem of internal dialogue. It is important that when we have conversations with ourselves, those thoughts are positive or, rather, beneficial. And that they transform us to create a better version of ourselves, in a way that is enjoyable.
It is true that many times we talk to each other as we would not allow anyone to talk to us.
Yes, I believe that having a more positive internal dialogue makes us better and makes us feel better about ourselves and treat others better. It is something that is not talked about much.
What is your dream?
What I like is creating things to solve problems. I would like to contribute to the solution of an important problem.
Any in mind?
There are several but I have yet to find the next one. I like to fall in love with the problems and not with the solutions, because when you are in love with the problem, that drives you to keep working. So when I grope a problem, I ask myself if I like it enough to dedicate five years of my life to solving it or what is the beneficial impact it will have…
“It is very important to surround yourself with people who believe in you”
What women have been your role models in science?
Someone I’d like to be like historically is Grace Hooper, who invented the ENIAC computer and the COBOL programming language. She was a mathematician at the beginning of the 20th century and she is a fascinating woman. Then, living women who I ask for emotional and professional advice are: my mother and the Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of La Coruña, whose name is Amparo Alonso. In addition to supporting me, it is a reference to her strictness.
What advice would you give to girls who, from now on, will take you as a reference?
That they do not limit themselves. May they fight for their dreams but also work hard. It is also very important that they surround themselves with people who believe in them.
Photos | Courtesy of Gema Parreño