Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping and Policy
Founded an AI and Policy initiative to address technological and sustainability challenges with data-driven policymaking, bridging the research-to-policy gap.
Designing Human-centered AI for Socioeconomic Development
Invited Talk and Panel: United Nations AI for Good Summit, Geneva, Switzerland, 2019
How artificial intelligence is transforming the world
Brookings Institution: Citation of A Voting Based System for Ethical Decision Making by Darrell West and John R. Allen in AI Policy Report, 2018
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to conduct in-depth, nonpartisan research to improve policy and governance at local, national, and global levels.
ILO Report leverages Daemo (Gaikwad et al., 2016) and Boomerang (Gaikwad et al., 2017), utilizing scientific findings as evidence to shape and validate policy recommendations aimed at enhancing working conditions within the digital labor platform ecosystem.
International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Digital Labour Platforms and the Future of Work Report, 2018
The International Labour Organization is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards.
AI for Social Good National Initiative
Invited as part of a group of select computer scientist to the inauguration ceremony of Wadhwani AI Institute launched by
the Prime Minister of India, Chief Minister of Maharashtra State, and the CEO of NITI Aayog Policy Think Tank, 2018
Daemo, a Self-governed Crowdsourcing Market with an Incentive Compatible Reputation System
Invited Talk: A European Dialog on the Platform Economy, European Trade Union Institute and Partners, Brussels, Belgium, 2018
Human-centered AI and Policy for Social Good, MIT Emerging Worlds Initiative
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), Delhi, India, 2017
NITI Aayog Policy Commission of India and FICCI Delegation of Women Entrepreneurs, Boston, 2018
Invited as a Judge
MIT Policy Hackathon 2023 (260 participants from all around the world)
Tech Policy Hackathon, Technology and Policy Program at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society Teaching in Science, Technology, and Public Policy
Please refer to the teaching section for courses on AI and Policy

As an educator, there is nothing more fulfilling to me than igniting a passion and excitement for the subject matter in my students. With a diverse background encompassing roles as a researcher, teacher, mentor, and former data scientist in the industry, I bring a unique, well-rounded perspective to my teaching approach. In the rapidly evolving world of computing and data science, education must reflect the sociotechnical realities of our time. To this end, I prioritize ethics in the curriculum and encourage creative learning by providing students with a comprehensive understanding of real-world contexts. With experience both as a teaching assistant and as a solo instructor, I have designed and delivered introductory and advanced courses at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and within open-source communities. My training equips me to recognize and address stereotype threats in academic settings, enabling me to create a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all students.

Course Topics: Classroom Teaching and Course Evaluations at MIT EECS, MIT IDSS, MIT Media Lab
6.3952 AI, Decision-Making, and Society, MIT EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), Fall 2023
subject Number of Students: 212 | Student Evaluations: 7/7
subjectGraduate Teaching Assistant and Recitation Instructor for a course in MIT's major 6-4. Taught a lecture on Ethical AI and Policy
subject Instructors: Ashia Wilson and Manish Raghavan
subject Student Evaluation Quotes:
(1) “[...] Neil is easily the single most influential course staff, and mentor, I’ve ever interacted with at MIT. [...]”
(2) “Best TA I’ve ever had! So kind, supportive, and helpful, both in and out of the classroom. [...]”
(3) “Amazing TA! Very thoughtful and cared about us students as people. Willing to meet and help outside of typical times and generally went above and beyond.”
(4) “[...] The slides were helpful as well as beautiful. It felt like Neil had a vested interest in how we were developing as students. He stimulated group discussions well and kept the conversations productive.”
(5) “Very kind and wonderful TA! Goes out of his way to help students learn. Did an excellent job!”
IDS.412 Science, Technology and Public Policy, MIT IDSS (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society), Spring 2023
subjectNumber of Students: 80 | Student Evaluations: 6.5/7
subjectGraduate Teaching Assistant and Recitation Instructor for a Core course on methods and frameworks for evidence based policy-making. Taught a lecture on AI and Policy
subject Student Evaluation Quotes:
(1) “Neil was a star. He is the only reason I was able to comprehend any of the information in this class. [...] He taught us the questions we should be asking and how to approach problems. He genuinely cared for our wellbeing and I am grateful to him for all his hard work.”
(2) “Neil went above and beyond both in teaching core concepts and making sure we feel supported both in and out of the classroom. [...]”
(3) “[...] I can’t imagine getting through the class without his recitation sessions. [...]” Course Topics: Research Methodology and Experiment Design
6.UAR: Undergraduate Advanced Research, Spring 2024
subjectNumber of Students: 81 | Student Evaluations: 6.8/7
subjectGraduate Teaching Assistant and Project Mentor
subject Instructor: Dina Katabi
MAS.S61 Computational/Quantitative Social Science Research Methods, MIT Media Lab, Fall 2017
subjectStudent Evaluations: 7/7
subjectGraduate Teaching Assistant, Data Science Lab Instructor, & Course Co-Designer
emoji_events MIT GSC Graduate Teaching Award (presented annually to one MIT professor or teaching assistant from each school for excellence in teaching a graduate-level course)
IC2S2 Conference Tutorial Crowdcomputing and Citizen Science for Large-Scale Experiments, 2017
subjectLead Instructor and Course Designer
Course Topics: ML Theory [CMU CS]
Carnegie Mellon 15 − 859 (B) Machine Learning Theory, Computer Science Department, Spring 2010
subjectCourse Grader
Course Topics: AI, Design Thinking, and Global Development [MIT]
MIT Emerging Worlds: Introductory Seminar Course on Machine Learning for Development, 2017-2018
subjectInstructor, Innovation Mentor, and Seminar Designer
MIT Emerging Worlds: Design Thinking and Innovation Workshop for Women Entrepreneurs, 2018
subject Lead instructor for the workshop
Course Topics: AI Innovation, Tech Entrepreneurship, and Management [MIT Sloan School of Management, CMU Tepper School of Business, MIT Media Lab]
MIT 15.376/MAS.664: AI for Impact: Towards Solving Societal-Scale Problems, MIT Media Lab+MIT Sloan School of Management Course, Spring 2020
subject Course Project Mentor
Carnegie Mellon 45 − 881: Entrepreneurial Thought & Action, Tepper School of Business, Spring 2009
subject Teaching Assistant
MIT 15.226 Modern Business in India: MIT Sloan School of Management Course, 2019
subjectGuest Lecture: Human-centered Machine Learning for Socioeconomic Development
MIT Emerging Worlds: Design Thinking and Innovation Workshop for Executive Program in General Management Course at MIT Sloan School of Management, 2017
subject Lead instructor for the workshop
Teaching for Broadening Participation in Computing
MIT EECS 6.S899 Special Subject Computer Science, 2020
subject Teaching Fellow, MIT EECS Communication Lab
subjectStudent Evaluations: 7/7
Navjyoti India Foundation, India Remedial Education Program, 2018
subject Guest Lecture for class 10th remedial education students
100 Robots for 100 Kids, 2010
subject Robotics Teacher Volunteer for a grass roots project to inspire Pittsburgh's at-risk children about computing and robotics
Andrew’s Leap, a Summer Enrichment Program for High School Students, the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, 2010
subject Co-instructor for the Game Play session of EteRNA

Invited Research Talks
Topics: Socially and Ethically Responsible AI, Public Policy, Sustainability and International Development
Public Interest Computing: Pluralistic Design of Ethically Responsible AI and Policy
University of Washington, Seattle, CHANGE Seminar, 2023
Public Interest Computing: Pluralistic Design of Ethically Responsible AI and Policy
Carnegie Mellon University, 2023
UNC Chapel Hill, 2023
Cornell University , 2023
Imperial College London, 2023
Pluralistic Design of Ethical AI and Policy for Sustainable Development
International College of Innovation, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, Taipei City, 2023
Community-based Designs of Human-centered AI and Policy: Towards Inclusion, Resilience, and Sustainability
Schmidt Science Fellows Global Meeting, 2022
University of Chicago, Data Science Institute, 2021
Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping Research and Policy Initiative
KDD Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping Workshop, 2021
Increasing Equity in Agricultural Markets Under Climate Shocks through AI and Participatory Policy
Harvard University, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Global FOOD+2021
Human-centered AI for Socioeconomic Development
AI for Social Good, Center for Research on Computation and Society, Harvard University, 2020
Designing Human-centered AI for Socioeconomic Development
United Nations AI for Good Summit, Geneva, Switzerland, 2019
Human-centered Machine Learning for Socioeconomic Development
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, 2019
Challenges and Opportunities in Designing Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Systems
Dell EMC, Massachusetts, 2019
Daemo, a Self-governed Crowdsourcing Market with an Incentive Compatible Reputation System
A European Dialog on the Platform Economy, European Trade Union Institute and Partners, Brussels, Belgium, 2018
Human-AI Collaboration for Sustainable Market Design: A Capability-Based Realization Focus Perspective
Harvard Berkman Klein Center and Media Lab, Ethics and Governance of AI, 2018
Design Thinking and Crowd Research: Open and Scalable University Laboratories
The HPI School of Design Thinking, Hasso-Plattner-Institut Germany, HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Summit, 2017
The Science of Human Computation
Xerox Research, Webster, NY 2014
TEDx Talk
The Future of Markets in the Era of Artificial Intelligence TEDx, BeaconStreet Boston
Invited Panels
The Future of Food Security, 2019
PopTech and RISD, Providence
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Social Good, 2018
Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Mumbai, India
Panel on Crowdsourcing,declined to increase the panel’s gender diversity
AAAI Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2017), Québec City, Canada
Moderated Panels
AI Fairness, Societal Impact, and Governance, CRCS Rising Stars Workshop on AI for Social Impact, 2020
Panelists: Milind Tambe, Cynthia Dwork, Jonathan Zittrain
AI/ML Research Demos
Human-centered AI for Music and Immersive Experience, 2018
Demo to A. R. Rahman, Grammy and Academy Award Winning Musician
Human-centered AI and Storytelling, 2018
Demo to Shekhar Kapur, an international film director, actor, and producer

Conference Program Committee/Co-chair/Session Chair/Reviewer
Data Science, AI Ethics, and Computational Sustainability
subject ACM FAccT [2024]: ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
subject ACM EAAMO [2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 emoji_events]: ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization
subject AAAI AIES [2024, 2023]: AAAI Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
subject ACM COMPASS [2022]: ACM Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies
subject IC2S2 [2021]: International Conference on Computational Social Science
subject SIGKDD DHM [2022, 2021, 2020]: Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping Workshop
subject AAAI [2020]: Conference on Artificial Intelligence
subject NeurIPS ML4PH [2021]: Machine Learning in Public Health Workshop
subject NeurIPS ML4D [2021, 2020, 2019]: Machine Learning for Development (ML4D) Workshop
subject IJCAI [2018 emoji_events]: International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Human-computer Interaction and Social Computing
subject ACM Creativity & Cognition [2024]: ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition
subject ACM CHI [2023, 2020 emoji_events , 2019 emoji_events ]: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
subject ACM CSCW [2020 LBW, 2019, 2018]: ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
subject WWW [2017]: International World Wide Web Conference

University and Department Service
subject Invited Judge, MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, Accelerate (2022)
subject MIT Media Lab, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Committee (2000-2021)
subject Co-chair, MIT SP Committee on Scholarly Interactions, (CoSI), a graduate student organization dedicated to stimulate and foster intellectual exchanges among the MIT community (2016-2020)
subject Co-Chair, MIT India Conference
subject Leadership Council, MIT Innovating for Billions Initiative
subject Media Lab Design Rep, GradRat Ring
subject Reviewer Committee, MIT Graduate Student Council Travel Grant
subject Co-organizer, EteRNA sessions for Leap@CMU Summer enrichment program for high school students

Research Initiatives Founded
subject Lead & co-founder, Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping: Data to Global Policy Research Initiative
subject Lead and co-founder, MIT Graduate Student Symposium Series
subject Founder Undergraduate Research Mentoring Initiative, a bridge between the MIT UROP program and postdoc, graduate, and undergraduate communities
subject Lead Founder Science, Technology, and Social Justice Speaker Series, MIT SP Committee on Scholarly Interactions

Organizations
subject Program Committee and co-organizer Computational Sustainability Open Graduate Seminar, (with doctoral students from Cornell, Harvard, GeorgiaTech, CMU, USC, and UMass Amherst)
subject Program Committee & co-organizer The Harvard Center for Research on Computation and Society, Global Workshop on AI for Social Impact open_in_new
subject MIT Sidney Pacific House Government (2016-2020)
subject 100 Robots for 100 Kids, a grass roots project to inspire Pittsburgh's at-risk children (at Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute)

Ph.D. students at the MIT Media Lab and EECS
subject Jack Forman, MIT Media Lab (MIT William Asbjornsen Albert Memorial Fellowship)
subject Dishita Turakhia, MIT EECS (Facebook Ph.D. Fellowship)
subject Ziv Epstein, MIT Media Lab (Publication at the ACM CHI)
subject Joy Buolamwini, MIT Media Lab (Publication at the ACM FAccT)
subject Ishwarya Ananthabhotla, MIT Media Lab (Apple Scholars Ph.D. Fellowship in Machine Learning)

M.S. students at MIT
subject Eunseo Choi, MIT Computer Science and Technology Policy (Publication at the ICML Generative AI + Law Workshop)
subject Ankur Podder, Architecture Studies (SMArchS) - Urbanism
subject Xuenan Ni, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Undergraduate Students at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley College
subject Kateryna Morhun, MIT EECS (Selection in the AI Research Workshop, Johns Hopkins University Center for Language and Speech Processing)
subject Nikhil Behari, Harvard CS (Publication at the ACM KDD Data-driven Humanitarian Mapping Workshop)
subject Yodahe Alemu, MIT EECS
subject Kealani Finegan, MAS Wellesley College
subject Sourav Das, MIT EECS
subject Alice Jin, MIT EECS, Co-supervised

MIT 6.UAR Super UROP Students
subjectAdithya Balachandran, MIT Mathematics and Computer Science
subject Ashley Benallo, MIT Computer Science and Neuroscience
subjectAudrey Vargas, MIT EECS
subjectDinuri Rupasinghe, MIT AeroAstro
subjectDivya Nori, MIT Computer Science and Biology
subjectDong Young Kim, MIT EECS
subjectHector Martinez, MIT EECS
subjectKristine Zheng, MIT EECS
subjectLara Ozkan, MIT EECS
subjectMichael Hadjiivanov, MIT Mathematics and Computer Science
subjectPreston Hess, MIT EECS
subject Shruti Garg, MIT EECS
subjectSofie Chung, MIT EECS
subjectThelonious Cooper, MIT EECS

Selected undergraduate and high school students with academic positions or scholarships they received
Directly supervised and mentored during and after open source research projects
subject Rijul Magu (CS Ph.D. Program, Georgia Institute of Technology)
subject Gabriela Noemi Gongora (Engineering Management grad program Stevens Institute of Technology)
subject Aditi Mithal (Awarded Google Venkat Panchapakesan Memorial Scholarship, CS grad program at UCLA)
subject Aditi Nath (CS grad program at Arizona State University)
subject Ankita Sastry (Info Security grad program Carnegie Mellon)
subject Karan Rajpal (CS grad program at Cornell University)
subject Nalin Chhibber (Mathematics grad program at the University of Waterloo)
subject Prastut Kumar (The Google Summer of Code Berkman Klein Center Harvard University)
subject Prithvi Raj (Siemens Research and Development, Bangalore)
subject Radhika Bhanu K (CS grad program at Cornell University)
subject Vibhor Sehgal (iSchool Grad program at the University of California, Berkeley)
subject Rahul Sheth (Undergraduate program at the University of California, Los Angeles)
subject William Dai (Undergraduate program at the University of California, Berkeley)