Unveiling AI bias through a multidisciplinary lens: Navigating AI's impact on diversity, communication, and equity

This event aims to shed light on the issue of bias in artificial intelligence (AI) by adopting an interdisciplinary approach. This event will bring together a panel of experts from various fields to uncover and examine the ethical and practical implications of AI bias. The multidisciplinary lens will enable a diverse exploration of how human biases subtly influence AI systems, perpetuating discrimination and ethical inconsistencies.

Panelists and moderator

• Pamela Hoff, the James J. Stukel Distinguished Professor in Educational Policy and Equity, earned a doctorate in educational studies, educational sociology and anthropology, and transformative education from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Hoff's career in education has spanned more than 30 years in community-based and formalized educative spaces. Dr. Hoff identified as a scholar activist who believes education should be transformative for the individual and the community. Her professoriate and life's work center anti-racist and de/anticolonial philosophies, methodologies, and approaches. She is particularly interested in the ways that power hierarchies are normalized and maintained at the everyday level of the lived experience. 

• Rob Kerr (moderator), Executive Director, Innovation and Opportunity Rob Kerr serves as the Executive Director for UIS Innovation and Opportunity. His background includes over 20 years in higher education and economic development. His previous positions include Director of Continuing and Professional Education at UIS; Deputy Director for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; Dean of Enrollment and Career Programs and Registrar at Richland Community College; and Director of Career and Technical Education at the Illinois Community College Board. In addition, Rob served as an adjunct faculty member at Benedictine University Springfield for 18 years.

• Ruby Mendenhall is the Kathryn Lee Baynes Dallenbach LAS Professor in Sociology and African American Studies. She is an Associate Dean for Diversity and Democratization of Health Innovation at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She also has appointments in Urban and Regional Planning, Gender and Women’s Studies, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives, and Social Work. Her research examines how living in racially segregated neighborhoods with high levels of violence affects Black mothers’ mental and physical health using surveys, interviews, crime statistics, police records, data from 911 calls, art, wearable sensors and genomic analysis. She also employs big data to recover Black women’s lost history using topic modeling and data visualization to examine over 800,000 documents from 1740 to 2014. She studies the effects of racial microaggressions on students of color health and sense of belonging on predominantly white campuses. She is currently exploring the use of AI in developing wellness tools.

• Mike Yao is a Professor of Digital Media and the Director of the Institute of Communications Research in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds curtesy appointments as Professor of Business Administration in the Gies College of Business and Professor of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Mike's research delves into the interplay between media, technology, society, and human communication. He examines how people engage with emerging technologies like AI and immersive multimedia across diverse social settings and how these interactions influence social behavior and human communication in digitally mediated spaces.

Hosted by UIS AI Campus Learning Community (AICLC), with the generous support from the UIS Online, Professional, and Engaged Learning (OPEL), and the Edmund L. Kowalczyk Fund*, and Innovate Springfield. 

 *Edmund L. Kowalczyk, Rozanne Robertson’s late husband, worked for Johnson & Johnson for a number of years and was a highly respected and effective businessman and leader who excelled at presenting seminars.  Prior to her death, Rozanne “Posy” Robertson established the Edmund L. Kowalczyk Fund for Leadership at UIS in his honor. She was a former member of the World Affairs Council of Central Illinois and a volunteer at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Posy’s intent for the Kowalczyk Fund was to present lectures on leadership at UIS.