The US Department of State has selected four distinguished scientists to serve as new US science envoys in 2024, with one of them being Bangladeshi-origin American data scientist Dr Rumman Chowdhury.
The scientists selected to participate in 2024 make up the first all-female cohort in the history of the US Science Envoy Program, according to a State Department media note issued on March 13.
The other three scientists are Dr Stephanie Diem, Dr Sian Proctor and Dr Dawn Wright.
Through the US Science Envoy Program, eminent US scientists and engineers leverage their expertise and networks to forge connections and identify opportunities for sustained international cooperation to advance solutions to shared challenges, champion innovation and demonstrate America’s scientific leadership and technical ingenuity.
The State Department website states that Dr Rumman Chowdhury is a data scientist and social scientist. She is the CEO of Humane Intelligence, a technology nonprofit that builds a community of practice around evaluations of artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Dr Chowdhury is also a Responsible AI Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Previously, Dr Chowdhury served as director of the Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency and Accountability (META) team at Twitter, as well as the global lead for Responsible AI at Accenture Applied Intelligence.
She has earned numerous awards and accolades, including Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, BBC’s 100 Women, Worthy Magazine’s Top 100, the Bay Area’s Top 40 under 40 and Forbes’ labelled her one of Five Who are Shaping AI.
Dr Chowdhury holds two undergraduate degrees from MIT, an MS in Quantitative Methods of the Social Sciences from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego.
