Date/Time
Date(s) - Fri 20 February
12:00 - 13:00
Location
Seminar Room, Malaghan Institute, VUW
Malaghan Institute seminar
Join the Malaghan Institute for their first seminar of 2026, with Dr Hercules Konstantopolous presenting his talk “It’s all science, if you want it to be”.
It’s all science, if you want it to be
Abstract:
Think about this: although we bundle science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into a single acronym, we are taught about them as if they are separate roads. Are they? If I look back at my career, I’ve worked in all these domains and I (more or less) did the same thing every time! The objective of a researcher, engineer, data scientist, or startup founder is the same: to solve problems that stop people in their tracks. The domain may change, be it understanding how diffuse hydrogen turns into stars, streamlining the operations of a geothermal reservoir, or understanding how people use software; but the structure does not. In each case, we define a problem and deliberately choose the tools needed to make progress, one bit at a time. In this seminar I will show how these ideas connect in practice and how the principles I’ve accumulated over the past twenty-something years translate into concrete ways Tech can support Malaghan scientists to push the boundaries of Immunology.
Bio
Growing up by the mountains of Northern Greece, Hercules developed a fascination with the night sky and all its intrigue. After a career as a researcher in astrophysics that spanned ten years and four continents, he became drawn to addressing a greater variety of data-related problems. Data science ensued with work on sustainability, renewable energy, enterprise software, and quantitative user experience research. Hercules was in the middle of standing up an AI startup in geothermal technology when the Malaghan came knocking… so add medical technology to the list!
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/4571553671076?p=sS1CG8jv5TARQGl0m2
Meeting ID: 457 155 367 107 6
Passcode: KQ3Xp2zQ
Note that if you are coming from outside the Malaghan Institute, please allow time to sign-in at reception for their start at 12pm.