The following Q-and-A article with Professor Lila Kari, reproduced with permission, was published originally in mathNEWS, volume 157, issue 1, January 17, 2025.
Can you describe yourself in first order logic notation?
∃x [MathProf (x) ∧ Admires(x, Socrates) ∧ Reads(x, Mahabharat) ∧ IsFanOf (x, BTS) ∧ ∀y(WaterlooStudent(y) → Likes(x, y))]
What colour would you paint MC if you had the liberty?
I am biased here, as my first name was inspired by Danube Delta sunsets, and means lilac colour in French. I would paint it all pastel lilac, even though pastel green would be a close second.
Favourite number?
As a mathematician at heart, I used to really like π, but we had a falling out of sorts after I tried to represent it visually using Chaos Game Representation (CGR).
The CGR of a DNA sequence (a sequence over the DNA alphabet {A, C, G, T}, such as s = AACGTTAA) plots the letters of the sequence within a unit square with corners labelled A, C, G, T, as follows. The centre of the square is the first point of the CGR. The sequence is read from left to right, and the next point in the CGR is the middle of the segment determined by (i) the previous point, and (ii) the corner labelled with the letter currently being read. CGRs of real-life DNA sequences show interesting patterns, such as horizontal bands, Sierpinski triangles, fractal squares, etc. Interestingly, CGR of DNA sequences taken from the same genome have the same visual patterns, CGRs of DNA sequences from closely-related species are similar, and CGR patterns of DNA sequences from very distantly related organisms are very different (see figure for CGRs of DNA from organisms from the six Kingdoms of Life (a) Animalia, (b) Fungi, (c) Plantae, (d) Protista, (e) Bacteria, (f) Archaea).
This property leads to CGRs being useful for novel species identification and taxonomic classification, a hot topic in my current area of research. (People may not know it, but only 10% of all life on Earth has been characterized/catalogued so far).
Coming back to my former-favourite number π, one can use a suitable encoding to plot CGRs for the binary encoding of any (decimal) number. So we tried plotting π, and its image looked disappointingly uninteresting, like an amorphous cloud of dots, indistinguishable from the CGR of a random number. This led to π falling out of favour…
Nowadays, as a researcher in Biodiversity Informatics, my favourite number is 1, because of the fundamental oneness of life on Earth, which all uses the same DNA building blocks, A, C, G, T, and (mostly) the same genetic code.
Favourite Math CND order?
Rooibos tea with soy milk, Korean seaweed snacks, and vegetarian soup-of-the-day. My recent CnD daily trips have been hampered, though, by the nature of travel from DC to MC, which changed from a sunny walk through the tropical DC–MC glass tunnel to a hat-boots-and-mittens outdoor arctic trek…
What does being editor-in-chief of a journal entail? Are there any parallels with being an editor of a somewhat less academic publication such as mathNEWS?
Being Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the journal Theoretical Computer Science, (section Theory of Natural Computing) entails, e.g., assigning submitted manuscripts to appropriate Handling Editors, evaluating reviews and Editor recommendations, and having the final say on publication decisions. I would imagine that Editors of mathNEWS are heavily involved in soliciting and producing mathNEWS content. In contrast, an academic EiC would normally neither solicit manuscripts, nor submit his/her own papers to the journal he/she is heading. The commonality would be that EiCs of both MathNews and academic journals play a central role in maintaining the quality standards of their publication, and are responsible for its core mission and long-term vision.
If your research was a meal, which would it be and why?
If research was a meal, it would have to be a blended cream vegetable soup: (a) it always starts with the same foundation, oil, onion & broth (for research, the foundation would be a solid math background), (b) you can put in whatever vegetables you like (for research, combine math with any discipline you like; interdisciplinary research is more fun), and (c) blending leads to something superior to the sum of its parts (in research, oftentimes innovation comes through combination).
Do you write for fun? If so, what about?
I used to write poetry, but nowadays I mostly write scientific papers. It gives me great satisfaction to find the exact wording that conveys precisely and unambiguously what I intend to say. Giving press interviews or writing popular pieces about our research results is also a fun challenge, as one has to find the right language and metaphors to get the main message across, while completely avoiding technical jargon.
What are some coveted skills / abilities in bioinformatics?
Math and stats. One can always learn biology on the fly if you are a mathematician, on a need-to-know basis.
What do you like the most about teaching?
My students. Waterloo students are everyone’s dream student. They are smart, motivated, hardworking, with strong mathematical background, charmingly nerdy (in the best possible way), curious, polite, respectful, with the right attitude and priorities. Rather than having to tell my students to work harder, the thing that I have to remind them the most often is to also have fun. Go dancing once in a while, it will do you good!
What’s your go-to snack or meal when you’re working late?
How did you know? Yes, I do snack, it is a habit I tried to kick multiple times. In fact, whenever I have the urge to try to change someone else, I remind myself that I have been unable to make this one simple change in my habits — stop snacking. The good thing is that this realization makes me less bossy. When I will finally succeed to stop snacking, watch out!
In the meantime, my favourite snacks are dark chocolate and shiitake mushroom crisps. I probably am the one who is single-handedly responsible for the scarcity of shiitake mushroom crisps at T&T.
How would you describe mathNEWS to someone who has never read an issue before?
I would (and do!) tell people that mathNEWS is the only news worth reading! It is witty, clever, original, informative, refreshing, and bubbling with intelligence. It is useful too: there was an article in the pink September 2024 issue that convinced me I should start a Google calendar.
Lila Kari is a Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science. Author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, she is regarded as one of the world’s experts in biomolecular computation.