BUILDING INCLUSIVE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ALGORITHMIC SYSTEMS

Sera Linardi

To effectively promote equity and improve opportunities for marginalized communities, the world needs all hands on deck, including technologists. Historically, the nature of academic work and the identities of those who undertake mathematical and computational research have resulted in algorithmic and resource allocation systems that do not integrate the perspectives of people who experience them. Sera Linardi is leading efforts to break down silos and integrate lived experience and grassroots voices into mathematics and computer science for social issues.

Linardi, associate professor of economics in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, was recently named the first executive director of Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO), an association that brings together researchers in computer science, mechanism design and operations research to tackle societal challenges. The organization, which includes more than 2,000 participants from 130 institutions in 50 countries, hosts an annual conference and runs year-long working groups, called EAAMO Bridges.

“Academic-driven social impact projects often don’t work because they are not sustainable or do not address what communities actually need. Researchers are rewarded for discipline-specific contributions, but communities need them to work across disciplines toward practical applications,” Linardi says. “Therefore, we need to build infrastructure to reconcile these different incentive systems. Centering the research questions on community voices and deployment considerations from the start would produce research that is more useful in practice and truly innovative.”

The organization offers tutorials, faculty support networks, doctoral consortiums and outreach programs, such as pairing Indigenous students and EAAMO researchers. EAAMO also communicates with larger agencies about how to connect academia and community programs, including funding.