A bulk of my policy interests have been in partnership with Queer in AI, a non-profit professional association for queer people in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related fields. They focus on collaborative research, outreach, and mentoring. Since 2023, we have focused on testimony work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) AI Safety Institute (AISI) as well as research and writing on quantifying harm by AI systems, malicious AI surveillance practices, core policy stances, and methods to encourage broader participation in AI.
Since August of 2022, I have been working with the Digital Humanities program on the societal impact of AI. We focus on how environmental factors affect our trust and use of AI.
Digital Humanities (DH) tries to understand the relationship between societal influence and emerging technologies. The good people at DH do a wonderful job pondering what comes next in a world where AI is ubiquitous. Previously, I have given talks on how dataset and model bias aid societal harms, how AI models affects our perception of privacy, and malicious forms of AI surveillance. I am deeply committed to understanding the social and ethical impact that AI has and finding ways to encourage broad participation in the development and deployment of AI systems.
I have played the bass for roughly 15 years. I mostly perform classical and jazz music. I recently started playing with SoNA, a local orchestra. I have also played for the Arkansas Symphony and other ensembles. If you’re ever in the NW Arkansas area you just might see me performing around town! Here are some older videos of some of my solo work.
I am a big fan of shooting landscapes and trees. Feel free to check out some of my work on my Instagram page. I started after inheriting my grandfather’s old Nikon FE2 and love all of the small movements inherent to the practice. I became interested after growing frustrated with continually buying new cameras to meet clarity trends. I loved the imperfections in older photos and an ability to produce larger prints at a high quality.
There is nothing more exciting than seeing a pretty tree and drawing it. For the past year, I’ve been focusing on watercolors of landscapes. Most of this work is done with walnut ink and sepia pen (inspired by a reproduction I saw once). Nature seems a nice balance to my everyday work :).
I hope to share some of them here sometime. Check back periodically!