I am a computer scientist with expertise in research and policy aspects related to developing responsible AI technologies (RAI). Currently, I am an Information Scientist at RAND in their Engineering and Applied Sciences Department, where I am leading workstreams in developing, deploying, and operationalizing RAI for challenging contexts in national security. I also work on developing AI models for understanding societal well-being and building an inclusive AI workforce. I am a member of the Association for Computing Machinery’s U.S. Tech Policy Committee and contribute to their policy pieces.

Before RAND, I was at the National Science Foundation. I was the 2022-23 AAAS Science and Technology Policy fellow at the NSF’s National AI Research Institutes program and in the leadership team of the ExpandAI program. I was the 2022 Mirzayan Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where I contributed to the work of the Committee on National Statistics on aspects of data governance.

I have completed my postdoc from the Department of Computer Science at Dartmouth College and my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where my doctoral work was awarded the Chih Foundation Research Award. Before my Ph.D., I was a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I obtained my M.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside, where I received the Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship.

Recent Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

• Winner of the RAND National Security Research Division’s Call for Big Ideas, 2024.
• Finalist for the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year 2023.
• Awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, 2022-23.
• Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow 2022, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, March 2022.
• Postdoc Seed Grant, Irving Institute of Energy and Society, Dartmouth College 2020 - Sept 2021.
• Chih Foundation Research and Publication Award, University at Buffalo, NY, May 2019.
• Doctoral Consortium Scholarship for AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Jan 2019.

Research highlights

• Applying an Equity Lens to Digital Content Transparency and Global AI Standards, RAND Perspective, 2024. [press]
• Contributed to the Comments to Office of Management and Budget on Privacy Impact Assessments, Association for Computing Machinery Technology Policy Committee (ACM), US Technology Policy Committee, April, 2024. [press]
• Technical Program Committee for ACM Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, 2024. [press]

• Quantifying biases in digital data Quantifying participation biases on social media, published in EPJ Data Science, 2023. Article about our work on Dartmouth news.

• Contributed to the policy paper, titled Joint Principles for the Development, Deployment, and Use of Generative AI Technologies, Association for Computing Machinery Technology Policy Committee, Europe/US Technology Policy Committees, June 2023.

• Honored to be invited by the UN Divison of Social and Economic Affairs for the Expert Group Meeting on the Implementation Of The Third United Nations Decade For The Eradication Of Poverty (2018-2027), UN Economic Commission of Africa, Addis Ababa, May 2023. (Paper and presentation)

• Perspective on AI-assisted diplomatic decision-making during crises - challenges and opportunities, published in the Frontiers in Big Data-Cybersecurity and Privacy, May 2023.

• Presented my work, “Understanding existential societal problems using a computational lens,” at the AAAS Annual Meeting, March 2023, in Washington, DC.

• Research paper on Accurate Intercensal Estimates of Energy Access to Track Sustainable Development Goal 7, published in EPJ Data Science, 2022.