ANDra 1995 e Francesca Dominici From Ciampino he landed at Duke North Caroline with a scholarship and without walking through a word of English. “I had to stay there three months, I thought I didn’t resist two weeks, I was thirty years old,” he says. Today is una of the minds brighter globally in the field of biostatistic and the Data Science: professor in Harvard, it was inserted by Time magazine In the list of 100 top scientists in the world especially for his revolutionary studies on the impact on the health of fine dust in the USA. Of its dominic results will speak on October 2nd on the occasion of the Milan Digital Week (promoted by the Municipality of Milan and created by Tig – The Innovation Group). He will tell how far the technology has been and is decisive for his work on pollution, public health and climatic crisis. We met her to talk about Artificial intelligence responsible for Trum’s timesp, the difficulties he faces to Harvard in this historical moment and also of how he has succeeded in Make a career as a scientist, in a male world.
Artificial intelligence and health, interview with Francesca Dominici, Biostatistic Professor in Harvard
What can artificial intelligence do for biostatistic? “Thanks to the explosion of technology in recent years we have access to many data. And not only numbers but videos, images, text. For example, the information that continually comes to us from the satellites. Artificial intelligence allows us to ingest all these data that we call multimodals and to analyze them with a practically unlimited computational power. We can understand who breathes polluted air with a precision of 50 meters, to estimate the harmful effects on health and also prevent them. With the traditional statistical analysis, in the mountain of available data it is necessary to choose an below together on which to concentrate. For example, let’s want to want to study the effects of pollutants on the population with Alzheimer’s and isolated this group. But if we wanted to consider the effects on who had a cardiovascular disease, with traditional methods we have to start over, they would pass months. Artificial intelligence refers everything in a few moments. But not only the speed, the power and precision are also absolutely surprising. Of course, since we also deal with climate change, We cannot ignore that artificial intelligence is consuming a lot of energy And he is taking us back on the road to the reduction of emissions. It is a theme that is very close to my heart, I’m working on it ».
Artificial intelligence for the study of pollution
What are the most important results he has achieved? “In the last ten years we have managed to demonstrate that the maximum levels of atmospheric pollutants established by the US environmental protection agency were not harmless as it was thought. This led Biden to make a revision of the laws by lowering the level of subtle particulate particulated particulate: Before the threshold was 12, now it is 9. And this has had very important consequences at the health and economic level. Nobody can choose not to breathe, then improve air quality, based on all cost and benefit analyzes, leads to savings of dollar bilion in medical expenses. To be precise, the beneficial-costal ratio of making laws that lead to cleaning the air is 30 to 1».
Francesca Dominici, Biostatic Professor and Senior Associated Prosecutor for Research at the Harvard That Chan School of Public Health. Kris Snobbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Francesca Dominici, from Rome to Harvard
With the statistics it was love at first sight. With America, a love raised slowly? «It’s like this: I immediately understood that Statistics understood as a means of solving concrete problems would have been my life. With America, however, it was not love at first sight, indeed I thought it was not exactly suitable for me. I came from a humble family, I had nothing and I didn’t know anyone. The first days – I was in North Carolina – I missed the cappuccinothe possibility of going for a walk, people. But I realized how many growth opportunities were for those who study: it struck me a lot. And, I must say, America gave me everything. To the point that I continue to stay here, despite the difficulties. Even if my salary is safe but it is not known for how much ».
Trump threats and optimism about the future
Have you ever felt threatened directly by Donald Trump? «I would say yes but during the first Trump administration: I had published important things and he discredit them openly. In these nine months of the second, no, not yet. If we do not publish anything directly in contradiction with what he wants to do, he leaves us in peace. But We suffer the attack on Harvard, and this makes the life of a scientist like me really difficult. But I remain a very optimistic person and see the crises as opportunities. We survived the first Trump administration, we survived Covid during the Trump administration and, however a sad and dark moment for America is, in the long run I think things will change. What we are experiencing is not permanent. For this I continue to believe in Harvard: to think it is a unique place, Both from a scientific point of view and for the impact it has on the careers of those who work there “.
Research cuts, male chauvinism, environmental deregulation
Do you refer to the cutting of the funds to universities? «The cut of research funds is total, but it is not only that. From us, in Harvard, the situation is panic. Also because what is needed to my laboratory to go on is not within the reach of any philanthropist who chooses to finance us, not even Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg. Only the School of Public Health in Harvard needs 720 million a year. But new obstacles come out every day: see Trump’s decision to make the work permit pay 100 thousand dollars for the boys who come to study at the university. How difficult the situation is says it disappearance of all the women president of the Ivy League of the American University: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Yale They were guided by women, no longer today. And in this climate, with the Trump administration that pushes for one Total deregulation in the environmental fieldwe witness an unprecedented explosion of the AI. The consequences will be dramatic ».
The negative consequences on the development of artificial intelligence
What do you imagine? «I myself push my researchers to leave but it is true that in Europe and Canada there are not enough universities and enough funds: nothing comparable to what we could do. So in the end I fear that this situation will lead to one loss of enormous intellectual capital. This will have negative repercussions on research, for example, to find new treatments for Alzheimer’s and prevent polluting diseases. But also from the point of view of artificial intelligence: The risk is that an irresponsible artificial intelligence is affirmed. And this because those who can do artificial research will be above all the industries, whose economic interests are not always ethical, neither responsible nor Equi. On the contrary. Those who can access these tools will be a very limited number of people and with a very restricted world vision. But, I am convinced, this period will also pass. I am very optimistic and I believe in a few years thanks to artificial intelligence we will be able to change American laws and in the world as regards many things, and in particular the prevention of diseases “.
Woman in a male world. “I said to myself: you can’t please everyone, go ahead”
Have you had a difficulty in asserting your ideas in the academic world as a woman? Have you adopted some strategy or has improvised? «I studied it, the strategy, because I am a scientist. As women we always have the complex of duty to please everyone. I was so too. And, like today, even then I only worked with men. In every room I entered I was one and the men six, eight, ten. I entered trying to be nice to everyone, to make everyone happy, to say yes to everyone. Then at a certain point I looked in the mirror and said to myself: “Francesca, enough. There will be people who will criticize you, who will judge you too aggressive, you go ahead”. Today I enter and say what I think: I do it in a very professional way but to some, since I am a woman, I will seem aggressive. I know. But … patience ».