In the spotlight: Zoé Christoff

• Name: Zoé Christoff

• Country of origin: Switzerland
• Function at BI: Assistant Professor in Cognitive Artificial Intelligence and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Bernoulli Institute

• Started at the RUG: in 2020
• Website: https://zoechristoff.com/

Can you remember the first day you walked into the building and what your impression was at that moment?

The first time I entered the building is when I came for my interview but I don’t remember my impression clearly. From the building I only remember the science exposition downstairs. I think I was a little bit stressed. I felt like I had prepared a lot because I had to give one lecture on my research and a smaller lecture about my teaching plans. But in the first of these I was lucky because there were people in the audience asking great questions. It was completely unexpected, it was not people I knew. They asked provocative questions that created a lot of discussion. That was a nice surprise. It’s a good memory.

What motivates you to do your kind of work?

I like to understand patterns and laws that are as general as possible. For example, if you are studying Physics maybe you’re interested in quantum theory or the laws of gravity; I am looking for similar laws but for information dynamics and social network phenomena. It will never be as general as the laws of Physics, but still it’s the foundational understanding of something that motivates me.

To put it differently, I am interested in what is possible and what is impossible in social contexts, like how misinformation can spread on social media in general, rather than in any particular application. Looking back, I think this interest started when I was in high school and took a short course in applied mathematics which contained some graph theoretical puzzles and some tiling puzzles. I loved the simplicity of the problems and the kind of general understanding involved in solving something like that.

And another thing is that I didn’t really want to choose between humanities and the sciences. And that is still the case: fast forward 25 years later, I still like the same kind of questions. For instance, in the latest paper I wrote with Davide Grossi and Maaike Venema-Los, we leverage graph colorings to prove how misleading the information sample that people see in their social circles can be.

What are you most proud of what you have achieved so far?

I can think of two things. I am proud of the interdisciplinarity of my research, more concretely, of not having given up in these kinds of questions that lie at the intersection of the humanities and mathematics. You can easily be distracted by trends or be afraid to waste your time, but I was able to follow what I find interesting all these years, to follow my instinct so to speak. So you could say I am proud of being stubborn, in the sense of not giving up.

Another thing that makes me happy is that we have a very nice group. I really enjoy the supervision and the atmosphere we have together. I don’t think this is about me specifically but it makes me happy that we have achieved that so far.

Would you say this is something you wanted to achieve or establish with your work?

So, talking about a good working environment for my group, it’s not like this was the original goal of my career. Of course it’s a nice goal! But I think this is simply how things should be. Unfortunately, academic environments still often praise scientists for over-working, including nights and weekends, and as a result it makes it difficult to combine an academic career with any family care duties or hobbies. So I am happy to be part of a group whose standard is not that. At the same time, this is how it should be, right?

Would you mind talking about something that you’d consider a failure in your trajectory?

Let me think. I had a lot of failures but when you look back, the failures turn out to be really good things. For instance: I didn’t finish my studies the first time around because back then I had three jobs at the same time, but then when I was able to come back, the philosophy department had changed and was actually much more analytical and formal, so it was a better match for me. I was hired as a TA in logic at that point and later moved to Amsterdam where I got my PhD position. I would not have enjoyed this continuity of my interests if I hadn’t experienced this initial failure.

Can you state the societal relevance of your research in a few words?

Yes, although maybe not really in a few words. In my research, I am interested in understanding how groups can be collectively smart. I use formal models and logic to try to understand better the limits of social interactions, for instance, opinion formation and opinion diffusion in social networks, and the impact that these limits might have for society, for instance their impact on election results.

So, if we have a better understanding of these dynamics, we may also have a better understanding of how to protect democratic institutions from the effects of misinformation or from potential manipulations of social media platforms.

When you were a kid, did you already envision yourself doing something like what you do?

No. Of course, I did not envision myself doing anything very boring or repetitive either, I couldn’t imagine choosing one thing to do. In that sense, I guess my work fits what I imagined, since I never had to choose: I am doing research that is so interdisciplinary that you cannot even tell if it’s science or humanities. As a kid I couldn’t imagine one dream job, because to choose one somehow meant to restrict what you are interested in. Therefore since I was a kid I had no specific job in mind.

Marcello Seri nominated you to be in the Spotlight. He wanted to ask you: is there any difference in the way people think and look at problems across these diverse fields?

Not really. People sometimes have the feeling that you either like languages or science, for instance, but that distinction is ridiculous. It always puzzled me. I could write poetry and also like writing logical proofs, and find both of them beautiful. I don’t think that that is strange, nor do I think that they are so different.

Can you think of something that the institute could do to improve, or something concrete about it that could be better?

Yes, I think we could have a main or unique common social point (instead of the more scattered kitchen-corners), so we could have more spontaneous coffees and lunches together. This of course goes farther than just the institute, but having more opportunities to talk with everyone would be great.

What do you like or dislike from Groningen?

Well, I like biking, the size of the city, its architecture and its cozy coffee places. I dislike the weather, some of the food culture, and the fact that people rarely spontaneously hang out or invite you to their house, for instance to share a meal, but really, just to spend time together.

What is your ideal vacation like?

Sunny! Definitely more to the south. Probably somewhere with more hills or mountains.

Which dish from your home country that you miss comes to your mind right now?

The food in Geneva is typically simple: if you have good ingredients well prepared, you don’t need anything too complicated or overdecorated. I sometimes miss this unpretentious good food. I also am a walking cliché but I do miss Swiss cheese, and the creamy Swiss version of the cheese fondue. Although if I try I can find even the right cheeses and prepare it here.

Lastly, which personal details most people don’t know about you?

People are sometimes surprised that I have had many odd jobs before this one. I had an administrative job in a publishing house in Geneva for three years, I was a teacher in a university of applied sciences, a substitute teacher in high school, I was also a secretary for millions of different people, I have worked in a movie theater, and also as a receptionist. Perhaps people will also find it strange that I initially studied French literature and Latin next to Philosophy.