Emma Pierson
@2plus2make5
Assistant prof @Berkeley_EECS, core faculty @UCJointCPH. Developing ML methods to study health & inequality. https://bsky.app/profile/emmapierson.bsky.social
The US government recently flagged my scientific grant in its "woke DEI database". Many people have asked me what I will do. My answer today in @Nature. We will not be cowed. We will keep using AI to build a fairer, healthier world. nature.com/articles/d4158…
Today, I’m launching a deeply personal project. I’m betting $100M that we can help computer scientists create more upside impact for humanity. Built for and by researchers, including @JeffDean & @jpineau1 on the board, @LaudeInstitute catalyzes research with real-world impact.
"Last month, I had a chance encounter with actor Ben Affleck in Los Angeles. My wife spotted him from a distance and, to her horror, I walked straight over. “Hey Ben,” I said. He looked up, a bit caught off guard — probably expecting a selfie, an autograph request, or maybe a…
I finally got to thank Ben Affleck — for standing up to hate thestar.com/opinion/contri… via @torontostar
Our paper moved a market! (Albeit one that uses fake money.)
I've resolved this positively: 2 papers convincingly show sparse autoencoders beating baselines on real tasks: Hypothesis Generation & Auditing LLMs SAEs shine when you don't know what you're looking for, but lack precision. Sometimes the right tool for the job, sometimes not.
It is a major policy failure that the US cannot accommodate top AI conferences due to visa issues.
.@rajivmovva and @kennylpeng will be at ICML presenting our method, HypotheSAEs, for hypothesis generation from text - go chat with them!
1. We will present HypotheSAEs at #ICML2025, Wednesday 11am (West Hall B2-B3 #W-421). 2. Let me know if you'd like to chat about: - AI for hypothesis generation - why SAEs are still useful - whether PhD students should stay in school
Honored to win a #CHIL2025 best paper award for our work modeling inequality in disease progression, led by @ericachiang_. @NIH health inequality remains a vital topic to support the health of all Americans. As we prove, failing to account for it biases estimates for everyone.
I can’t believe I’m saying this: our work received a Best Paper Award at #CHIL2025!! So so excited and grateful 🥰 Looking forward to day 2 of the conference with these awesome people :)
Congratulations to BAIR faculty @_ahmedmalaa and @serinachang5 who have been awarded Google Research Scholar Awards under the "Health Research" Category and BAIR Alumnus Ashwin Pananjady who has been awarded the Google Research Scholar Award under the "Machine Learning"…
The #NoKings protest we attended was peaceful and passionate. Cars honking constantly in support, American flags and California flags and pride flags, young children and old folks, a woman in king's robes, a little boy with a "bad DOGE much wow" sign.
Every single one of my highest impact papers has been written with immigrants + international collaborators. America has 4% of the world population; our scientific greatness has always relied on geniuses from all over the world. These policies are both cruel and self-destructive.
Vance is so good: "The American Space Program, the first program to put a human being on the moon, was built by American citizens. This idea that American citizens don't have the talent to do great things, that you have to import a foreign class of servants, I just reject that."
Please help us spread the word! 📣 FATE is hiring a pre-doc research assistant! We're looking for candidates who will have completed their bachelor's degree (or equivalent) by summer 2025 and want to advance their research skills before applying to PhD programs.
Exciting news: the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) group at Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a predoctoral fellow!!! 🎉 microsoft.com/en-us/research…
Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard. hrvd.me/IntStudents25t
Excited to have two papers accepted to ACL 2025 main! 🎉 1. ChatBench with @jakehofman @ashton1anderson - we conduct a large-scale user study converting static benchmark questions into human-AI conversations, showing how benchmarks fail to predict human-AI outcomes.
I will soon be transitioning to a new position, so Nature Medicine is now looking for a new medical AI editor! Please find the link to apply below and let me know if you have any questions about what the position entails springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/SpringerNature…
Very much looking forward to this!
For this week’s NLP Seminar, we are thrilled to host Emma Pierson @2plus2make5 to give a talk titled Using New Data to Answer Old Questions! When: 5/16 Fri 2pm PT Registration: forms.gle/9sNYv2isfcqYQC…
This is extraordinary: nytimes.com/2025/05/15/hea… This is the kind of miracle that federal scientific funding brings.
Building AI models that work for all Americans isn't "woke". It's as American as can be. Would you want your car's self-driving feature to only work in urban San Francisco but not in rural Texas? Or Siri to understand the New Yorker accent but not that of Alabamans? From Emma's…
The US government recently flagged my scientific grant in its "woke DEI database". Many people have asked me what I will do. My answer today in @Nature. We will not be cowed. We will keep using AI to build a fairer, healthier world. nature.com/articles/d4158…
Erica’s new paper on a method to both measure *and* correct for three types of disparities associated with disease progression is now out! Check out the thread for more detail + findings from a case study on heart failure. Congratulations!!!
I’m really excited to share the first paper of my PhD, “Learning Disease Progression Models That Capture Health Disparities” (accepted at #CHIL2025)! Link and summary in thread✨1/
The first paper of @ericachiang_'s PhD, just accepted at @CHILconference, proposes a model of disease progression which estimates and accounts for 3 types of health disparities to more accurately measure disease severity. See her full thread below!
I’m really excited to share the first paper of my PhD, “Learning Disease Progression Models That Capture Health Disparities” (accepted at #CHIL2025)! Link and summary in thread✨1/
Looking forward to it!
Join postdoctoral researcher at Cornell Tech, @dmshanmugam, for her upcoming talk on Friday (4/25) from 1-2 PM in room 205 at the School of Data Science. A Zoom is available if you can't make it in person. To learn more, click here: bit.ly/3YdOGEp