Lobo Living Room returns Sept. 6 with a discussion about artificial intelligence featuring faculty members from UNM’s Interdisciplinary Working Group on Algorithmic Justice. Lobo Living Room: The Bits and Bytes of Artificial Intelligence features a discussion with Sonia Gipson Rankin, professor in the UNM School of Law; Melanie Moses, professor of Computer Science and Biology; and Kathy Powers, associate chair and associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science.
The lecture will explore the topic of hidden bias in artificial intelligence and the impact the technology will have in everything from education to employment. The speakers will also explain the work they are doing through the UNM Algorithmic Justice Project, funded by UNM ADVANCE.
The event will be held in Farris Engineering Room 1,000. Hors d’oeuvres will be provided at 5:15. The discussion begins at 6 p.m. Register to attend on the UNM Alumni website.
Gipson Rankin’s work combines her computer science background with her passion for legal justice. Her scholarship on artificial intelligence and technology was published in the Washington and Lee Law Review in 2021 and the New York University Law Review Online in 2023. She is deeply engaged in the legal community as an American Bar Foundation Fellow, member of the New Mexico Supreme Court Commission on Equity and Justice, and former president of the New Mexico Black Lawyers Association. Professor Gipson Rankin is the recipient of the Professor Burgy Minzner Award for Faculty Excellence and Professionalism.
Moses’s interdisciplinary research crosses the boundaries of Computer Science and Biology by modeling search processes in complex adaptive systems such as ant colonies and immune systems, and most recently the immune response to the virus that causes COVID-19. She uses bio-inspired design of swarms of robots can autonomously cooperate with each other and adapt to monitor environmental conditions, currently focused on monitoring the gas emissions from volcanoes. She co-founded the UNM-SFI Working Group on Algorithmic Justice, is part of the UNM ADVANCE program to support the success of women faculty in STEM, and she currently serves on the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium and the board of CRA-Widening Participation.
owers is a mixed methods political scientist and engaged scholar interested in power and justice. Her work has focused on institutional transformation and war. For example, she built a novel database used to investigate how regional trade institutions across the globe impact war when they transform into military alliances. As a human rights scholar, her work centers on the politics of repair for harm through transitional justice in the form of reparations, truth-telling, and institutional reform globally as well as in the United States. Her current work focuses on mapping the landscape and complex processes in global and local reparations systems and more recently the politics of global governance and repair for harm in algorithmic justice.
Learn more about Lobo Living on the UNM Alumni Association website.