Rediet Abebe

Rediet Abebe is a Professor at the University of Tübingen and the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, where she leads the AI & Mechanisms research group, and is co-affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. She was previously an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Abebe holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University as well as graduate degrees from Harvard University and the University of Cambridge.

Her research is in the fields of artificial intelligence and algorithms, with a focus on equity and justice concerns and on the scientific foundations of algorithmic decision-making in societal contexts. She co-founded and co-organizes Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG), a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research initiative working to improve access to opportunity for historically disadvantaged communities, and helped establish the associated ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO). Abebe’s research has informed policy and practice at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education.

Abebe is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and has been honored in the MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35, ELLE, and the Bloomberg 50 list as a “one to watch.” She has presented her research in venues including the National Academy of Sciences, the United Nations, and the Museum of Modern Art. Abebe co-founded Black in AI, a non-profit organization tackling representation and inclusion issues in AI. Her research is deeply influenced by her upbringing in her hometown of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.