The shadow behind a walk in the park
The summer of 2021 had its own glory and challenges for me. On 6th July 2021 I came to know that I had been promoted to Professor of Robotics at Imperial College London. The feeling that I reached the last official milestone of my academic career was so gratifying. Looking back, the winding road through several universities in Sri Lanka, Japan, USA, and UK has been full of ups and downs. Every time an experiment went wrong, a paper got rejected, or a grant got rejected, the success of my come back pivoted on how I stopped, reflected, and re-adjusted priorities before pushing back. The wins peppered along the way kept reinforcing my belief that struggles are not won alone. There is a society behind every win. Apart from support from family, it has always been the right people I worked with who shaped how I win. Most important among them all are those who stood with me in failure and helped me to reflect and push back. Therefore, the promotion was a great moment ...