28 year old Rediet Abebe is an Ethiopian computer scientist who recently earned a PhD at a top university in the United States of America.
She has been celebrated for her achievement after earning the PhD in computer science from the Cornell University.
Abebe works in the fields of algorithms and artificial intelligence and is also a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.
Her research develops techniques in algorithms and AI to mitigate socioeconomic inequality.
Abebe has studies for various degrees in Computer science, Applied Maths and Maths from Cornell University, Harvard University and Cambridge University.
Meet Rediet Abebe, 28 the first black woman to get a PhD in Computer Science at Cornell University
*Born in 1991 (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
*Junior Fellow at Harvard
*MS in Computer Science (Cornell)
*MS in Applied Maths (Havard)
*MA in Maths (Cambridge)
*BA. in Maths (Harvard) pic.twitter.com/Gq54FCnQru— Povo News (@povonewstv) December 17, 2019
She recently wrote on Twitter after her latest achievement that “When I started my PhD, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish, let alone have my graduation featured in the BBC.”
Top recognition
Abebe was recently named one of 35 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review and honored in the 2019 Bloomberg 50 list as a “one to watch.”
Her research is influenced by her upbringing in her hometown of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she lived until moving to the U.S. in 2009.
Abebe said recently that her research focuses on using artificial intelligence techniques in order to improve societal welfare.
She said one example is addressing income shocks low-income people face such as missed paychecks, Cornell Sun reported.
Her research involves a welfare model that uses information about families to find intervention methods and mitigate the effects of the income shocks.
“I realized that actually, if you do computer science or applied mathematics and ultimately other fields, you can work on these really interesting challenging mathematical questions you can do a lot of data-driven work, you can play with data, but you can also think about problems that affect society immediately,” Abebe said.
Source: Africafeeds.com
