The World is Our Oyster

What have you been up to since graduation?

A lot of exploring and a lot of humbling experiences. I’ve had the opportunity to explore my interests by working at different companies (Facebook, Fin) as well as getting back to my language/writing roots with natural language processing, which is a strand of computer science that aims to extract information from text.

Before college, I was also an activist on issues surrounding mental health stigma, and now I am returning to those issues from an engineering perspective. I am interested in helping make technology a more empathetic place, which right now means doing research on computational ways to detect if a mental health forum thread is making the help-seeker feel better (and inversely, feel more distressed), with applications to community moderation.

How has a TGS education benefited you?

I think my TGS education has given me a good level of grit as well as a sense of purpose. Although I definitely have enjoyed my time as a college student, I also know that, when circumstances allow, I have an internal obligation to use my skillset to help solve social problems in the world today.

What is something interesting that you’ve worked on?

As a woman in technology, I am very invested in giving fellow women the resources to gain information on potentially discriminating environments. I led a team of four engineers and designers to create a Chrome extension (activerank.co), which displays how well a company treats their female employees based on pay gap, percentage of women in the company, and reviews from women who have worked at the company.

I would also have to say that the work I’m currently doing with Microsoft Research has been incredibly fulfilling. Computational mental health is a small but growing field, and through this project on detecting the trajectory of health-seekers  we’re already in partnership with some of the biggest players in digital mental health.

What’s next?

I’m currently off to graduate school at the NYU Center for Data Science for two years, where I wish to continue working on problems related to empathetic machine learning and making technology more considerate. In four years, I want to have spread the research I’m currently working on into something that touches the lives of people. Whether that means helping make the current technologies you probably already use more empathetic and working for an established startup or company, or potentially starting my own company, is still flexible.

There have been numerous talks about technology increasing depression, but there is also so much power in technology to deliver mental healthcare to people who otherwise would not have access to it. Current and future generations will grow up with social media and technology, and I think making technology more empathetic is one of the areas my skills as an engineer and researcher can make the most impact in.

What have you been up to since graduation?

I was in California visiting my godparents when I got my Sciences Po Paris Euro-American Program acceptance letter and since then my life took on a rapid speed. I moved to France, where I now study Politics and International Relations on the Reims Campus. Almost immediately after I came, I successfully ran for student representative election. Last Summer I moved to Athens where I volunteered for an LGBTI Refugee Shelter for Safe Place International working with the youth in the shelter to transition from the UNICEF support into successful job applicants.

When I got back from Greece, I took up an opportunity to preside over the European Youth Parliament Conference in Austria, which focused on the main topics of debate around youth civic participation, the environment, and human rights. This opened the door for an internship in the Czech Government Human Rights Council where I will be working this Summer.

How has a TGS education benefited you?

Overall, since I graduated I try to use what I learnt during TGS and what stuck with me the most was the value of Ubuntu. As young people, we now have to connect and ensure that our voices get heard at the global governance level, as we live in a time when our input is incredibly crucial. Next year I am headed to Edinburgh for a year abroad and I am ready to join the Scottish youth in their fight for a better environment and a better tomorrow.

What is something impactful you’ve worked on since graduating?

Personally, if I were to choose one of the things from the list above, it would be the student representative of my programme at Sciences Po Paris. From the very night that I decided to run, it was an intense two-years of negotiations, meetings, and crisis management. I could not be more proud of how we managed to improve our campus as the student government. Part of our job was to develop the academics and ensure smooth communication between the administration and the students but the responsibilities connected to the role really opened my mind about the sort of privilege that we’ve had as students at Sciences Po.

We pushed for a new health centre, newly offering increased mental healthcare and ensured the renovation of the student lounge, but also dealt with addressing students’ personal problems and helping everyone to enjoy their studies. Myself, I focused on making the campus more inclusive, and one of the first things I pushed for was making all bathrooms gender neutral. We also managed to get free contraception and HIV testing offered regularly on-site. However, my inclusive-focus as a student-rep went far beyond that, and I have had the honour to finish my speech at this years’ Sciences Po Inauguration Ceremony with the remarks, “Welcome to the most open-minded Sciences Po campus ever.”