Professor Amber Spry from Brandeis University and a UMBC Alumna (BA, Political Science, '10), will talk about "The Technological Future: Shifting the Focus from What We Build to Who We Build it For" in the UMBC AOK Library Gallery on 4-5:30 pm this Wednesday.
Dr. Spry is an Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University. She is a thought leader bridging social scientific insights with application in the tech industry, most recently as Meta's Academic Collaborator for Social Impact Research, where she led the creation of measurement systems to understand social outcomes across Instagram, Facebook, AR, and VR applications, and artificial intelligence. She is a founding member of Meta's Co-Design Lab, a central organization that brings everyday people alongside engineers and designers to create new technologies with, not just for, the communities who use them. She also convened the recent Responsible Innovation in AI Workshop in collaboration with the New York Academy of Science and Arizona State University, which gathered technologists, academics, and civil society to create actionable frameworks and guidelines for solving pressing technological challenges.