IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022 - 26

Pipelining
Attractive Programs for Women
OpenMindEd AI
Broadening knowledge of artificial intelligence
o
Olivia Brown and Victoria Helus like
to joke that they came of age alongside
artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (although technically the
concepts were born well before they
were). Now in their very early 30s, the
women are " paying it forward " in a
way, teaching students what they wish
they would have learned about the
space prior to entering college. The
result is OpenMindEd AI, their newly
launched business advocating understanding
of AI and machine learning
from all angles.
" Even though AI does have a lot of
successes and will be able to solve many
issues in the world, it's not perfect. It's
not this silver bullet, " explains cofounder
Brown. " It has a lot of pitfalls and if
you don't account for those when you're
designing the system that can lead to
issues where it fails or might be biased
against certain populations down the
road. " With OpenMindEd AI, Brown and
Helus are setting up the next generation to
understand the nuances, considerations,
and responsibilities of an algorithm-based
system so that it truly meets its goals.
Different Paths, Shared Journey
Brown and Helus met at MIT Lincoln
Laboratory (Lincoln Lab), a research lab
affiliated with the Massachusetts InstiDigital
Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2022.3202717
Date of current version: 7 November 2022
tute of Technology (MIT), in 2015. Federally
funded, Lincoln Lab does a lot
of work in public interest and national
security arenas, and the two found
themselves in the AI Technology group
with similar interests.
Helus's work focuses on the areas
of ethics and knowledge-informed AI.
" The idea of ethics is becoming more of
a discussion lately in AI and machine
learning, " she says. " We ask
questions such as 'How
do we make sure we're
building systems and
algorithms that are
fair and protect privacy?'
and 'Can we
monitor what happens
when they're
deployed so that if
there was an adverse
outcome we would be
able to fix it, or at least
understand there's a problem?' "
As for knowledge-informed
AI, that means injecting human and
common-sense knowledge into an AI
system so that it can reason in a way
that humans can understand better. She
also participates in MIT's Beaver Works
Summer Institute, teaching classes
about AI and offering immersive challenge
experiences.
Brown's interests are hyperfocused
changes that occur from when they are
in development and training to when
they're deployed and running in the
wild. " We see these systems sometimes
fail because the data they encounter
once they are made operational looks
different from the data they encounter
while they are being trained, " she says.
" The question to explore then is, 'How
do we evaluate and enhance the robustness
of these systems?' "
Although their project load and
" Let's get
more people, more
girls, more people
of color, working on
these programs so they
can bring diverse
perspectives to them, "
adds Brown.
interests overlap, the women's paths to
MIT looked very different. Brown grew
up excelling in math and science, with
parents and teachers who encouraged
her to study engineering. She pursued
a degree in systems engineering at
Washington University in St. Louis and
stayed an extra year to complete a dual
bachelor's/master's degree in systems
science and mathematics.
During that time,
she did an internship
at Lincoln Lab that
focused on AI and
machine learning
and returned
after graduation
to join the technical
staff.
Helus, on the
other hand, was not
good at math or science
growing up and was
encouraged to look at humaniaround
how machine learning systems
might be vulnerable or fail and the
26
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2022
ties fields for a career instead. But when
she started at the University of Southern
California, she chose math and economics
as a double major " just to know if I
could do it, " she shares. After graduating,
she got an interview at Lincoln Lab and has
been there ever since, earning a master's
degree in statistics from nearby Boston
University while working full time.
Both are exceedingly appreciative of
the environment at Lincoln Lab, which
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022

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