You Belong in AI!

Welcome to the fourth season of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast presented by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. To start off our season, we will be talking to Pedro Silva (he/him), manager of inclusive AI at Pinterest! Pedro received his PhD from UC Irvine in 2019. In this episode, Pedro shares about his background, his journey to working at Pinterest, and the fascinating work he does on inclusive AI.

Want to know more about the work Pedro does? Check out the links below:

In this episode of UCLA ACM AI's "You Belong in AI!" we will be interviewing Dr. Leshell Hatley. Dr. Hatley (pronouns she/her). Dr. Hatley is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Coppin State University. She is also a Faculty in Residence Fellow at Google and founding executive director of a non-profit organization called Uplift.   The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach: Ava Asmani, Kai Tota, Maya Raman, Jason Jewik, Mat Ruíz, Aman Oberoi, and Nisha McNealis. This podcast is edited by Jason Jewik. The music you hear in this episode is: Cheery Monday by Kevin Macleod.

In this episode of UCLA ACM AI's "You Belong in AI!" we will be interviewing Chinasa Okolo. Chinasa (pronouns she/her) Chinasa is a 3rd year PhD student in computer science at Cornell University. Her work includes developing machine learning models that advances diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases and other AI-enabled health care models. Much of her work has a profound impact on low resource communities all over the world.  The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by  Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Ava Asmani (Events/Outreach Intern 20-21). The podcast is edited by Kai Tota. The music you hear in this episode is: Cheery Monday by Kevin Macleod.

Welcome to the second season of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast presented by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. In our first episode we will be interviewing Paco Guzman. Paco Guzman(pronouns he/his) is a Research Scientist Manager at Facebook AI, where he focuses on machine translation for low-resource languages. He received his Ph.D. in Intelligent Systems from Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, and has since been working at the forefront of Natural Language Processing and machine translation research. Paco is a big proponent for diversity in the AI community, and recently helped Facebook start their AI co-teaching program. The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by  Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Ava Asmani (Events/Outreach Intern 20-21). The podcast is edited by Jason Jewik. The music you hear in this episode is: Cheery Monday by Kevin Macleod.

In the sixth episode of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast, UCLA ACM AI Outreach interviews Santiago Gonzalez (he/him/his). Santiago Gonzalez is a PhD candidate at UT Austin and an AI Researcher in Cognizant's Evolutionary AI team, expecting to graduate in December 2020. Santiago's research lies at the intersection of machine learning and evolutionary computation, where he evolves novel loss functions for neural networks that are able to increase model accuracy, make better use of small datasets, and confer resistance to adversarial attacks. Prior to pursuing a PhD at UT Austin, Santiago received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines, where his research focussed on time synchronization in wireless sensor networks.

The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21). The podcast is edited by Jason Jewik. The music you hear in this episode is:

Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In the fifth episode of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast, UCLA ACM AI Outreach interviews Chanel Fischetti (she/her/hers). Chanel is an ER doctor who is also the Chief Medical Officer of Centaur Labs, a company that focuses on cleaning and labeling medical datasets at scale and on demand to improve medical AI for other hospitals or businesses. For the last few months, she has been working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic at several Yale New Haven Health hospitals in Connecticut. In the fall, she will be joining Brigham and Women's Emergency Department as a clinical instructor, while continuing to work at Centaur Labs. Her passion is medical entrepreneurship and leadership in both a clinical and non-clinical capacity. Chanel's hope is that there will be more female physicians in tech leadership roles in the future, specifically within AI.

In this episode, she discusses the importance of seeking out mentorship, taking risks, and continuing to reach for your dreams, in spite of obstacles or failures along the way. As one of the few female physicians in a leadership position at an AI company, she encourages others not to shy away from roles you may be intimidated by, but rather to seek out these opportunities and to embrace the challenge. Ultimately, she suggests that all listeners take the next step in their journey with a mindset of: "Why not me?" because you never know what growth or experience can come when you stop limiting yourself.

The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21). The podcast is edited by Jason Jewik. The music you hear in this episode is:

Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In the fourth episode of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast, UCLA ACM AI Outreach interviews Shweta Khushu (she/her/hers). Shweta is a Sr. Engineer and Growth Lead of the AI team at SkySpecs, a startup based in Ann Arbor, MI that uses AI and robotics to fully automate drone inspections of wind turbines to help the green energy initiative so that one day renewable energy will be ubiquitous. She received her MS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2016 with a specialization in Machine Learning and Image Processing, despite beginning her journey in STEM in Electronics Engineering. Shweta is passionate about solving real-world problems in the Computer Vision space. Outside of work, she trains in Indian classical music, and likes to bake, read, watch movies, and spend time with her tabby cat Oliver. In this episode, Shweta discusses the importance of representation and inclusion in tech and AI. Additionally, she provides advice and words of encouragement to youth from underrepresented groups who are interested in AI but not sure how to get started.

The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21). The podcast is edited by Arjun Subramonian. The music you hear in this episode is:

Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In the third episode of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast, UCLA ACM AI Outreach interviews Jennifer LaPlante (she/her/hers). Jennifer runs an organization called DeepSense, with a focus of using AI and machine learning to grow businesses in Canada's ocean sector. She is currently completing an MSc in Computing and Data Analytics; her thesis topic is applying natural language processing to improve the gender and ethnic diversity of corporate boards. Jennifer also has a BA in Sociology and an MBA. She started her career in market research and moved into leadership roles in IT and innovation. Furthermore, Jennifer advocates for more women to be in STEM leadership roles, including executives and directors of boards of tech companies. In this episode, she discusses the importance of representation and inclusion at all levels of tech companies, especially those developing AI products. Additionally, she provides advice and words of encouragement to youth from underrepresented groups who are interested in AI but not sure how to get started.

The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21). The podcast is edited by Arjun Subramonian. The music you hear in this episode is:

Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In the second episode of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast, UCLA ACM AI Outreach interviews Luca Soldaini (he/him/his). Luca details his experience as a Computer Science Ph.D. student at Georgetown University, where his dissertation focused on improving access to medical information. He further talks about his current role as an Applied Scientist at Amazon Alexa, where he works on web question answering and natural language understanding, and his interest in natural language processing. Additionally, Luca discusses the importance of representation and inclusion on college campuses and in AI, and ways in which we can improve diversity in AI research. Lastly, he provides advice and words of encouragement to youth from underrepresented groups who are interested in AI but not sure how to get started.

The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21). The podcast is edited by Jason Jewik. The music you hear in this episode is:

Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In the first episode of the "You Belong in AI!" podcast, UCLA ACM AI Outreach interviews Carey Nachenberg (he/him/his). Carey details his experience as a Computer Science student at UCLA in the 90's and his past roles at Symantec and Chronicle. He further talks about his current work as a Software Engineer at Lyft Level 5 Autonomy and his interest in artificial intelligence. Additionally, Carey discusses the importance of representation and inclusion on college campuses and in AI, and ways in which UCLA students can help improve diversity in tech. Lastly, he provides advice and words of encouragement to youth from underrepresented groups who are interested in AI but not sure how to get started.

The "You Belong in AI!" podcast is made possible by UCLA ACM AI Outreach. All questions are contributed by Arjun Subramonian (Outreach Director 20-21), Maya Raman (Events Director 20-21), Kai Tota (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Jason Jewik (Outreach Officer 20-21), Mat Ruíz (Outreach/Events Officer 20-21), Aman Oberoi (Outreach Officer 20-21), and Nisha McNealis (Outreach Officer 20-21). The podcast is edited by Jason Jewik. The music you hear in this episode is:

Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/