ACM ByteCast

Edward Y. Chang, a prominent figure in computer science, discusses his journey from studying operations research to leading AI advancements at Google. He shares insights on developing generative AI technologies, exploring the potential of AI in healthcare and investment banking, and the importance of human collaboration in AI-driven systems.

Jacki O'Neill, Director of Microsoft Africa Research in Nairobi, discusses her journey blending research, engineering, and design to address local/global challenges in AI, HCI, and technology for emerging markets. She emphasizes ethnography for effective tech design, user-centered design for global impact, and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. O'Neill explores the socio-tector model in African small businesses and advocates for technology for social impact, guiding young professionals towards impactful careers.

2022 ACM Fellow Ranveer Chandra discusses his journey from India to leading Microsoft's Agri-Food initiatives. He talks about using AI to empower farmers, bridging connectivity gaps with TV white spaces, and the transformative potential of AI in agriculture and food production.

Yael Tauman Kalai, a cryptography expert, discusses her career journey, work on blockchain privacy with ring signatures, concerns around quantum computing, and exciting emerging areas in cryptography. She touches on the balance between academia and industry, verification methods, and the intersection of AI and cryptography.

Noriko Arai, a professor in the Information and Society Research Division of the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan, discusses being a creative in academia, the impact of AI, mentors and colleagues who inspired her, essential skills and ethics in AI research, and the challenges faced by female researchers in IT and the gender gap in Japan.

Eugenio Zuccarelli, Data Science Manager at CVS Health, discusses his early passions in engineering and technology, his work on MIT Media Lab's Project US, challenges and concerns across different industries such as data sharing and privacy, and the importance of trust in data sharing in healthcare. He also explores the risks and challenges of using synthetic data in research and the need for adapting skills and attitude in corporate settings. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the significance of students acquiring real-life application knowledge alongside technical expertise and the potential of AI and machine learning in healthcare.

Regina Barzilay, School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of AI & Health at MIT, discusses her journey to develop an AI-based system for early detection of breast cancer. She explores challenges in clinical AI and the promise of ChatGPT in healthcare. She also addresses the need to mitigate inequity in medicine while advancing clinical AI.

Host Bruke Kifle interviews Kush Varshney, a distinguished research scientist at IBM Research. They discuss responsible AI, operationalizing RAI principles, risks of generative AI, and coordinating AI safety. Kush also shares insights from his book 'Trustworthy Machine Learning' and his work with IBM's Science for Social Good initiative.

In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Rashmi Mohan hosts Anima Anandkumar, a Bren Professor of Computing at California Institute of Technology (the youngest named chair professor at Caltech) and the Senior Director of AI Research at NVIDIA, where she leads a group developing the next generation of AI algorithms. Her work has spanned healthcare, robotics, and climate change modeling. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NSF Career Award, and was most recently named an ACM Fellow, among many other prestigious honors and recognitions. Her work has been extensively covered on PBS, in Wired magazine, MIT Tech Review, YourStory, and Forbes, with a focus on using AI for good. Anima talks about her journey, growing up in a house where computer science was a way of life and family members who served as strong role models. She shares her path in education and research at the highly selective IIT-Madras, the importance of a strong background in math in her computing work, and some of the breakthrough moments in her career, including work on using tensor algorithms to process large datasets. Anima spends some time discussing topic modeling and reinforcement learning, what drives her interests, the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration, and the promise and challenges brought about by the age of generative AI.

In this episode, part of a special collaboration between ACM ByteCast and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)’s For Your Informatics podcast, hosts Sabrina Hsueh and Adela Grando welcome Mor Peleg, Professor of Information Systems at the University of Haifa and Founding Director and Head of its Data Science Research Center. She is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics and an international fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI). She received AMIA's New Investigator Award for work on the GLIF3 guideline modeling language. Mor is a renowned researcher in clinical guideline-based decision support. Initially fascinated by biomedical engineering, Mor shares how she arrived at the intersection of information systems and medicine, after working in IT and completing her postdoctoral research at Stanford. She mentions her recent project, MobiGuide, which aims to narrow the gap between clinical guidance and patient needs by providing 24/7 decision support to patients and providers. Its current focus is on improving the mental wellbeing of cancer patients through evidence-based practices such as exercise, yoga, and positive psychology. Mor also shares advice for people (especially women) looking to work in interdisciplinary fields. She emphasizes the importance of health equity and how AI can be employed in the service of detecting unfairness.