First steps of our ESRs: Reza M. Asiyabi.

Hi, I am Reza M. Asiyabi. I’m 27 and I was born in a Turkish city in the North-West of Persia (Iran), called Tabriz. But I grew up in a Persian city, Tehran. I have studied Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering in Bachelor’s and Remote Sensing Engineering in Master’s Degree, both in the K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran. During my Master’s Degree, I have studied Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data processing and classification. For my PhD, I will continue my work on SAR data processing.

As the ESR-15 of the MENELAOS^NT Project, my research focuses on “Adversarial samples and uncertainty-aware deep architectures for SAR data classification”. My main host in this project is the Center for Spatial Information (CEOSpaceTech) at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania, and my supervisors are Prof. Mihai Datcu and Prof. Daniela Coltuc.

My first steps in Bucharest were not as easy and smooth as I had imagined. After my arrival on the 4^th of November 2020, several administrative problems with my visa and residence permit did not let me settle down smoothly. The cold Winter of Bucharest together with the Covid restrictions made the situation a bit worse but, thanks to the support of my colleagues and supervisors, the problems were finally solved and I could start enjoying the beautiful and lively city of Bucharest.

Because of the Covid restrictions, most of the students were working remotely. I was really lucky to have three other outstanding colleagues, Omid, Saqib, and Amjad, from MENELAOS^NT in Bucharest, who helped me a lot with the settlement and made the adjustment to the new environment much easier and enjoyable. I have an outgoing personality and I love to communicate with other people. Fortunately, Romanian people are very friendly and helpful and, even though I cannot speak Romanian, I started to make new friends very fast. I got really surprised how well Romanian people can communicate in English!

Bucharest is the largest city and the capital of Romania, and one of the most important cities in Eastern Europe, being the fourth most populated city of the EU and one of the fastest-growing high-tech poles. Over its history, the city was heavily damaged by wars, invassions and earthquakes. However, many buildings and monuments have survived and have been rebuilt and renovated. Today, the elegant architecture of Bucharest is a mix of historical buildings, especially from the communist era, and modern skyscrapers. Bucharest earned the nickname of ‘Paris of the East’ (Romanian: Parisul Estului) or ‘Little Paris’ (Romanian: Micul Paris) because of its sophisticated and aesthetic architecture in the period between the two World Wars. The city center is the most interesting and lively part of the city with numerous landmarks, such as the Parliament Palace, the Old Town with tens of restaurants and clubs, the Revolution Square (Piaţa Revoluţiei), the Romanian Atheneum, the Piaţa Unirii, the Arch of Triumph (Arcul de Triumf), and many more

Moreover, Bucharest has tens of beautiful parks and gardens for getting a sense of the nature in a metropolitan lifestyle of the city, including the Herăstrău Park, Cişmigiu Garden, The Botanical Gardens, Tineretului Park, and many more.