I have written about my shadow CV or CV of failure before in blog posts, for example here. That post features my CV of failures as it was at that point in time. On this page I have a running CV of failures, or rather, rejections.
Shit I dealt with
2021- (as associate professor)
- Moving countries at the height of a pandemic
- Poor level (access and quality) of mental health services
2017-2020 (as tenure track faculty)
- Cervical cancer scare [but a procedure improved things]
- Didn’t get access to therapy after “feeling better”
- Mania & psychosis, bipolar diagnosis [blog post]
- Several unsuccessful fertility treatments, deciding to stop trying
- Didn’t get tenure [blog post]
2015-2016 (as postdoc)
- Depression/anxiety, started therapy
- Dealing with a mentally unhinged family member
2011-2015 (as PhD researcher)
- Renovated a 1930’s house from top to bottom
- When planning to have children, found out my ex (of 10 years) already had another girlfriend AND child
Early years
- Bullying
- Being an adult much earlier than I should have
- Had plastic surgery to feel better about myself
- (Various things which require trigger warnings, AMA)
Positions I didn’t get
2020
- Diversity & inclusion officer at Amsterdam University College (no response)
- Project manager at Lygature (after application)
- Technical writer at bol.com (after application)
- Researcher/teacher at Hogeschool van Amsterdam (after application)
- Data analyst at government agency (after application)
- Community manager open science at TU Delft (after interview)
- Data scientist at DSW insurance company (after interview)
- Data scientist at Intelligence Group (no response)
- Lecturer scientific skills at Erasmus Medical Center (after application)
- Tenured assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology – Biomedical Engineering [Blog post]
2020 – Positions I declined while interviewing
- Project manager open science at Radboud University (declined for another position)
- Program manager at NWO (after interview)
- Tenure track assistant professor at TU Delft (after interview)
- Tenured assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology – Computer Science (after interview)
2016 (as a postdoc)
- Lecturer at Dundee University, United Kingdom. Invited to interview, but didn’t get an offer.
- Lecturer at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. Invited to interview, but didn’t get an offer.
- Fellowship (assistant professor), Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Application was desk rejected, I successfully appealed this, but it was rejected afterwards.
Grants, awards
2017- (as tenure track faculty)
- Lowlands science grant, to organize a citizen science project at a music festival
- Eurotech postdoc grant, EUR 150K for a postdoc
- SIDNFonds ResponsibleAI 2018, EUR 250K for a PhD student or postdoc. Rejected after pre-proposal
- NWO Veni 2018, EUR 250K for 3 years of research. Rejected after review, but before interviews
- Lorentz-eScience competition 2019, 15K funding for a workshop
- NWO Veni 2017, EUR 250K for 3 years of research. Rejected after review, but before interviews
- eScience grant, EUR 250K funding for a PhD student or postdoc
2015-2016 (as postdoc)
- LNVH travel scholarship for a research visit
- DKFZ fellowship, funding for 2 years postdoc at DKFZ
- NWO Rubicon, EUR 120K funding for 2 years postdoc abroad.
- Erasmus MC pilot project, EUR 50K funding for a year postdoc.
- STW Open Mind Award, EUR 50K funding for a year postdoc. Made it to the top 15 (but not top 3) of 132 applicants.
- Erasmus MC pilot project (co-applicant).
2011-2014 (as PhD researcher)
- Anita Borg scholarship 2014. Third time’s the charm, right? No.
- EMBO short-term fellowship. Funding for 3-month internship
- McKinsey fellowship. Funding for 3-month internship
- Anita Borg scholarship 2013
- Anita Borg scholarship 2012
Rejected papers
This list does not include the “major revision” recommendations which were eventually successful, so the list of initial rejections is longer.
2017- (as tenure track faculty)
- Desk rejection at Medical Image Analysis (middle author)
- Three papers at MICCAI 2020 (last author). Two published at MICCAI LABELS workshop, one rejected at MICCAI LABELS.
- Paper at MICCAI 2018 (first author). Later published at MICCAI LABELS workshop
- Paper at MICCAI 2017 (first author). Later published at MICCAI LABELS workshop.
- Paper at Physics in Medicine and Biology (second author).
- Paper at Medical Image Analysis (first author)
2015-2016 (as postdoc)
- Two papers at MICCAI 2016 (both as first author). One was later published at JBHI, one never published.
- Paper at MICCAI MLMI workshop (first author). Published at ISBI 2016.
- Paper at IEEE TPAMI (second author). Published in Pattern Recognition.
- Paper at Medical Physics (second author).
- Paper at IEEE TMI (first author). Published in JBHI
- Paper at IPMI 2015 (first author). Published at MICCAI 2015.
2011-2014 (as PhD student)
- Paper at MICCAI 2014 (first author). Published at MICCAI MLMI 2014 workshop.
- Paper at Pattern Recognition Letters. Desk rejected, after appeal published at Pattern Recognition Letters.
- Paper at Pattern Recognition. Not published.
- Paper at ICPR 2012 (second author). Not published.
Other (academic) rejections
- Position in Education committee of Danish Data Science Academy 2022
- Part of bid to organize MICCAI 2024
- Participating in SOCML “Mental health and AI” session 2020
- Organizing a workshop at ISBI 2021
- Giving a talk at “You Got This” conference 2021
- Organizing a social media tutorial at MICCAI 2018
- Poster presentation at meeting of the Royal Society on human and computer vision
- Organizing a workshop at ECCV 2016
- Joining the organizing committee of WiML 2015