HOW I THINK ABOUT RESEARCH
Professor Alan V. Oppenheim ,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) –
Abstract:
In the context of our roles in mentoring doctoral students, there are many ways of finding and formulating research problems and ideas. My own approach over many decades has been to focus on a style that gives students the experience as much as possible of an initially unstructured intellectual adventure with a safety net underneath. I like to describe the style as : “Having fun, chasing interesting ideas, which lead to solutions, in search of problems.” In this talk I will say a little more about this style and illustrate it with a few examples. In the examples, the focus is not on the details of the solution, but on how the topic originated and where it led to in terms of potential practical applications.
Bio
Professor Alan V. Oppenheim is a Principal Investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and Ford Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received the S.B. and S.M. degrees in 1961 and the Sc.D. degree in 1964, all in Electrical Engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University. During his career he has been closely affiliated with MIT Lincoln Laboratory and with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His research interests are in the general area of signal processing algorithms, systems and applications. He is coauthor of the widely used textbooks Digital Signal Processing, Discrete-Time Signal Processing, (currently in its third edition) Signals and Systems, (currently in its second edition), and most recently Signals, Systems & Interference published in 2016. He is also editor of several advanced books on signal processing. Throughout his career he has published extensively in research journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Oppenheim is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a member of Sigma Xi, and Eta Kappa Nu. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Sackler Fellow.
Host
Isabel Maria Martins Trancoso
Venue:
Centro de Congressos do IST
Upcoming Events
INESC Brussels HUB Winter Meeting 2023

This edition of the HUB Winter Meeting will be co-organised with Science Business and will take place on the 30 and 31 January, in Lisbon, at Instituto Superior Técnico, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Please see below a summary of the agenda, this will be updated on the INESC Brussels HUB website regularly (confirmed speakers and other relevant info). Places for onsite participation are limited so registration is mandatory. Online participants will be sent a ZOOM link for each specific session on the 27th January.
INESC Brussels HUB website: https://hub.inesc.pt/
Monday, 30 January
a) Digital Europe Programme & Chips Act: state of play and possibilities for INESC.
9h to 10h30 GMT
(Exclusive for INESC researchers and administrators).
b) Science Business: how can INESC tap into Science Business network, activities and communications tools.
(Exclusive for INESC researchers and administrators).
c) Networking Lunch (for all onsite participants).
d) Roundtable: From rhetoric to reality – Embedding international strategy in the DNA of research organisations.
(Closed-door, roundtable workshop, Chatham House rules, open to INESC researchers and administrators, external participants by invitation only).
e) Networking Dinner
(By invitation only – INESC researchers participating onsite in the event are elegible to join).
Tuesday, 31 January
f) Workshop: How they did it? Strategic positioning for structural success in Horizon Europe: a discussion of best practices.
(Exclusive for INESC researchers, administrators and international invited speakers).
g) The public consultation on European R&I Programmes: Towards FP10.
(Closed-door, roundtable workshop, Chatham House rules, open to INESC researchers and administrators, external participants by invitation only).
h) Networking Lunch (for all onsite participants).
i) Management Committee meeting (Directors and POB members)
The HUB Winter Meeting aims at bringing together researchers and administrators from the 5 INESC institutes, affiliated higher education institutions in Portugal and abroad, with key European and global players, to:
– Discuss key research and innovation issues at EU level.
– Inform institutional policy and strategy.
– Exchange best-practices about R&I management, career development and policy positioning.
– Promote, discuss and deliver vision, visibility, networking and impactful communication.
– Create, identify and deepen partnerships and collaboration opportunities for collaborative R&I.