When Eleonora Losiouk was selected to visit ICSI as a Fulbright fellow in early 2020, she was eagerly looking forward to flying to California from her home university in Padua, Italy. But within a few weeks, that bright future seemed to be in peril as the COVID-19 pandemic grounded planes worldwide.
Just about a year later, she finally boarded that flight, arriving at ICSI for a six-month Fulbright fellowship in the fall of 2021. Although many people were still working from home, Losiouk quickly found her niche with a team led by Serge Egelman based on a shared interest in innovative strategies for detecting malware intrusions on android systems.
“I was really happy to see that there was a perfect match between what I proposed and what Professor Egelman’s research group was currently doing,” said Losiouk. “We had a good collaboration. I felt like I was involved 100% in the activities of the team.”
As an assistant professor at the University of Padua before coming to ICSI, Losiouk saw the fellowship as an opportunity to take a break from teaching and accelerate progress on her research goals.
“What I liked most is that ICSI is fully focused on research,” said Losiouk, adding that the institute’s collaborative culture was another big benefit. “You can go there and have the feeling that you are a real researcher, not like a student or visiting professor who has to work alone. You are a part of a team.”
The pandemic put a damper on social interaction, but Losiouk said being in the heart of California’s Bay area still proved a fruitful environment to find connections. “From a geographical perspective, it’s a great opportunity to be so close to Silicon Valley and the University of California, Berkeley. You can connect with a lot of students and other people,” she said.
After returning home, Losiouk kept the collaboration going by linking students from the University of Padua and University of California, Berkeley. The team soon had a journal submission in the works.
With a connection now in place, Losiouk expressed her hope that other Italian scholars can benefit from exchanges with ICSI: “I hope that we can have further collaborations with ICSI, either with students coming here or going there.”
This story was published in January 2026 as part of a retrospective series highlighting ICSI’s accomplishments and impacts over the years. To learn about our ongoing work, explore our Core Research Themes.