Schar School Welcomes Thema Monroe-White

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'We've talked about the data harm. I want to get at the solutions.' - Thema Monroe-White

George Mason University is excited to introduce Thema Monroe-White as the newest associate professor, jointly appointed by the Schar School of Policy and Government and the College of Engineering and Computing. Monroe-White is an artificial intelligence (AI) and policy justice scholar, and the recipient of a prestigious CAREER grant, awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to early-career faculty who are trailblazers within their field.

Monroe-White focuses on the intersection of science, policy, and justice, and the $1 million CAREER grant is a huge step toward Monroe-White's goal of developing social inclusion via educational and workforce development pathways in AI and data science. The grant, titled "Investigating Undergraduate Student Persistence Intentions for a Diverse Data Science Community," seeks to understand how the racialized experiences of minoritized STEM students shape their professional pathways, allowing her to develop "concrete, practical approaches for broadening participation in data science and related fields."

"It is vital to couple technical skill building with an understanding of conceptual social systems. It needs to be paired-it cannot be an afterthought," said Monroe-White on the importance of linking policy with computer science. "We cannot take for granted the historical underpinnings of socially constructed data systems and tools; if we do, we risk repeating (and in the case of AI … exacerbating with great efficiency) our old mistakes."

As Monroe-White has illustrated, scientists' background and experience influence the research they pursue-a subject explored in another NSF grant she brings to Mason. These grants tackle systemic racism in the sciences from two different angles: while the CAREER grant examines the role systemic racism plays in the educational pipeline, the second grant allows Monroe-White to refine an algorithm that tracks the relationship between race and choice of academic research topic. Discovering how to break down the entry barriers in STEM is vital to unlocking under-researched fields of study and creating equity in the sciences.

Monroe-White brings her expertise in AI to George Mason at time when the university is investing in AI research and innovation. Her CAREER grant is joined by George Mason's recent $1 million grant to create the nation's first Center for AI Innovation for Economic Competitiveness (CAIIEC).

"Thema Monroe-White's research understands the computational, social, and policy issues that underline artificial intelligence," said J.P. Singh, Schar School Distinguished University Professor and principal investigator for CAIIEC. "She will greatly help us bridge disciplinary divides and train the next generation of student scholars to address the cutting-edge issues of our times."

While Monroe-White is invested in revealing algorithmic bias, her research and teaching agenda focus on AI's capacity for positive social transformation. This will be the center of her contributions to George Mason's new undergraduate program in technology policy, an innovative split between computer science and policy studies.

In her fall course, AI: Ethics, Policy, & Society, Monroe-White asks, "Must AI tools reflect reality?" AI could instead reflect an ideal state, rather than an "unfair" reality. AI algorithms may currently reflect the imperfect biases of reality, but that future is not set in stone.

"We've talked about the data harms. I want to get at the solutions," she said when asked about her goals at George Mason. "How do we round that corner and, instead of stereotyping subordination and omission, how do we get at empowerment and uplift?"

As part of George Mason, Monroe-White will train the next generation of computer scientists and policy leaders to envision and create that future.