Marily Nika

Marily Nika FRSA, is a Greek computational scientist and product manager who works for Google in augmented reality, specializing in speech technologies and artificial intelligence.

Marily Nika
Μαρίλη Νίκα
Born
Athens, Greece[1]
EmployerGoogle
Websitewww.marilynika.com

Early life and education

Marily Nika grew up in Athens, Greece and attended University of Piraeus for her undergraduate studies and Imperial College London for her Ph.D.[2] Growing up, she always demonstrated a unique passion and competence in programming. In 2011, Nika was the first Greek woman to receive Google's Anita Borg Scholarship,[3][4] which allowed her to pursue a Ph.D. at Imperial College London. During her time at Imperial College, she created the Women in Computing group that aimed to support the College's women, and as part of this Nika organized various events including the UK's first ever female-only hackathon.[5] Moreover, she launched the London Geekettes,[6] a local chapter of a global network called the Geekettes. In 2020, she became the co-founder of the larger organization, Geekettes.[7] In 2015, Nika created the computing curriculum for several British schools as part of Little Miss Geek.

In 2014 Nika completed her Ph.D. Her research focused on explaining by maths and epidemiology how content goes viral online.[2] Her Ph.D. research got published as a book[8] by Lambert Academic Publishing and also got presented at TEDxAthens in 2014.[9]

Career

Nika completed a Ph.D. internship in data science at Facebook in 2014, and then joined Google's speech team full-time as an AI product manager working on a series of Google Assistant and speech technologies features.[10] At the same time, she is a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School where she teaches a forum series in Product Management. She also teaches Product Management at O'Reilly Media.

Nika is a three-time TEDx Speaker (TEDxZurich 2013,[11] TEDxAthens 2014,[9] TEDxImperialCollege 2015[12]), a Teaching fellow at Harvard Business School and an entrepreneur.

Awards
  • 2015's Medal of Outstanding Achievement (Imperial College London, Royal Albert Hall)[13]
  • 2015's WISE Influence Award (Women in Science & Engineering)[14]
  • 2018's Woman of the Year award (everywoman in technology awards, London)[15]
  • 2020's Top 100 Women in tech, #TechWomen in London[16]
  • 2021's Emerging Leader Award (Imperial College London Alumni Association, London)[17]
  • 2021's 40 under 40 list (Greek America Foundation, New York)[18]

References
  1. "Marily Nika & Rania Svoronou | The 'art' of creating user-friendly digital products". Athens Science Festival.
  2. Nika, Marily. Synthedemic modelling and prediction of Internet-based phenomena, Marily Nika PhD Thesis (PDF).
  3. "Google Scholar's Retreat 2011". YouTube.
  4. "Kathimerini.gr Marily Nika Interview in 2011".
  5. Nika, Marily (2013). "Why female hackathons are all the rage".
  6. "Geekettes Blog".
  7. "Geekettes Blog - New Cofounders".
  8. Nika, Marily (2020). Going Viral: Prediction of Online Virality with Synthedemic Modelling: The history of epidemics and a framework for modelling and predicting online virality using infectious disease modelling. Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-6202920469.
  9. "Is Robin Thicke the new Swine Flu? Marily Nika, TEDxAthens 2014". YouTube.
  10. "Google Blog: Typing Greek has never been so easy". 5 September 2017.
  11. "A futurespective of a life yet to be lived: Marily Nika at TEDxZurich in 2013". YouTube.
  12. "Controlling Gravity, Marily Nika, TEDxImperialCollege 2015". YouTube.
  13. "DoC PhD student to be honoured for her outstanding achievements". Imperial News.
  14. "WISE Campaign interview with Marily Nika".
  15. "Everywoman Technology Awards 2018". 8 February 2018.
  16. "We Are #Techwomen". 18 November 2019.
  17. "Alumni Awards 2021 - Emerging Leader Award".
  18. "Greek America Foundation - 40 under 40 class of 2021". Greek America Foundation.
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