Spot ON - Wege zur Professur
Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Baccelli | FU Berlin | Professor for Open and Secure IoT Ecosystems
In this episode, we speak with Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Baccelli, Professor of Open and Secure IoT Ecosystems at Freie Universität Berlin and researcher at Inria, the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology. His career has taken him from Silicon Valley to academic positions in Paris and Berlin, leading to a transnational role connecting the research environments of France and Germany. Emmanuel initially had no plans to pursue an academic career. During the dot-com era, he worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley before returning to France to complete his PhD at École Polytechnique. He explains how his industry experience helped him connect academic research with practical technological challenges. The conversation explores the importance of intrinsic motivation, supportive academic networks, and engagement beyond one’s immediate research environment. Reflecting on his own career, Emmanuel speaks openly about the role of timing and chance in academia. He encourages early-career researchers not to focus exclusively on obtaining a professorship, but to seek stable positions that allow them to pursue meaningful research over the long term. The interview was conducted by Dr. Christina Ayazi from ZEWK at TU Berlin.
