 So I'm here with Lassina Dembélé, who is a staff associate at ICTP, and I thought I'd ask him a couple of questions. So tell us a bit about your career somehow. I know you were born in Cote d'Ivoire, and how was your mathematical career? It's an interesting question. So I was born in the Ivory Coast as you said. I did my undergraduate there, and then I went to Canada for my postgraduate studies. And until then I really didn't know much about mathematical research. So postgraduate you mean masters? Masters and then PhD. And this in Canada was in Montreal? Yeah. So the master was at Laval University. Then the PhD was in the Guild University in Montreal. And how was that transition from Cote d'Ivoire to Montréal? Quite challenging because the two systems are quite different. So yeah, I mean, but it was fun in some ways. I mean, so you have to learn to adjust. So yeah, it was a very interesting example. So your mother tongue or at least a language you spoke at home was French? No, actually I did my parents I don't speak French. I only learned French at school because it's the official language in the Ivory Coast and it's the language with the education in Durham. So but language was not a sort of difficulty moving to Montréal? The language wasn't the barrier. At least for the master because I did that in French. But for the PhD then I had to improve my English. So that was also another fun challenge for me. Yeah, I mean, when I learned that I remember my first class of calculus, I think after the class or maybe, I mean, I should say the evaluation, not the class itself. One of the evaluation was very good math skill but poor English. Very knowledgeable but poor English skills. So it means that I did have to improve my English. But yeah, I still laugh about that evaluation. And in terms of preparation, making a sort of cultural transition, both cultural and sort of scientific, was that that was difficult or how was that? I guess the thing is that I honestly didn't know what to expect. So I mean because so in some sense I didn't think that there was that much challenge in traditional, at least not academically. Maybe the challenge was more like cultural in some sense. I mean geographic I would say. You mean in terms of weather? Yeah, in terms of weather, that was the main challenge. But academically I don't think there was really that much. And you found the Montréal Welcome in City presumed? And then you eventually now have a professor job in Warwick in England. Is that correct? Yeah, it's at the lecture. And how that's yet another transition, was that complicated or? Yeah, I mean that's not as complicated as the postgraduate studies. The system is certainly different. But yeah, I mean I didn't really experience any difficulty. I mean one of the main things that turned out to be much shorter than what I was experiencing in Canada but apart from that it's similar. And so what would you have any advice to someone thinking about doing mathematics, maybe in the developing world, maybe far away from the standard centres of research? Yeah, so as I was saying, one of the... I feel like I can at least give advice to students who let the educational system in Africa to study abroad in mathematics and do research after the degree. Because from my personal experience I didn't know anything about mathematical research Excuse me, but you said there were some challenges. What would be some example, for example, of challenges that you faced or you think people would face? Yeah, the main challenge is that you don't do anything about mathematical research. So how do you choose a subject in which you want to do research if you don't do anything about it? And I don't think the people that I was dealing with necessarily understood that. So you waste some extra time learning a bit about mathematics before you can choose the type of topic you want to work on. And I think if I can save some students the time of wandering around before they can decide, I think that would be a good thing to do. So you would say overall advice outside mathematics itself, but more of how to manage the learning process or the career? Yeah, exactly. The learning process acquired the appropriate information about mathematical research which would enable the person to make better choices much more quickly than I did. It took me a while before I could decide what I wanted to do research-wise.