AI Research Catalyst Fund Awardees Virtual Seminar Series

“Fairness in Information Access through Culturally Competent AI Systems”

by Dr. Huan Chen
Associate Professor in Department of Advertising

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

ABSTRACT:

Organizations and public agencies often disseminate information uniformly at scale without any cultural considerations, leading to unfairness in information access for certain social groups due to their inherent, unique cultural backgrounds. By integrating machine learning and social science theories to address bias and inequality with both technical solutions and realistic assumptions of social behavior, our proposed project is aiming at 1) identifying and validating cultural features that influence social groups information access needs and receptivity; and, 2) building a culturally aware machine leaning (ML) system for information dissemination purposes. The proposed project will facilitate certain social groups’ information access in specific contexts, resulting in better information receptivity because of cultural resonance. More importantly, it will help to build a large-scale fairer information access system via culturally competent AI mediated model, advancing the research fronts of fairness in ML where we not only exclude the bias features but also promote the cultural sensitivity features.

Bio:  

Huan Chen, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Advertising at the University of Florida. Her research interests include new media and advertising, international and cross- cultural advertising, and AI and mass communication. Chen has published more than 50 articles in leading refereed journals, such as Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, Health Communication, among others., and as book chapters. Her research articles were selected as the 2019 most influential article of Journal of Advertising and the most read article of Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising. She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Advertising, Annals of Management Science, and Journal of Ethnography and Qualitative Research, and has served as a reviewer for numerous journals and conferences. Chen has received top paper and research awards and recognition from national and international communication associations and conferences. She was awarded the Research Fellowship of the American Academy of Advertising in 2017 and 2020. She was the recipient of the Annual McGraw Hill Distinguished Scholar Award of EQRC conference in 2019.

Chen earned her Ph.D. in Communication and Information from University of Tennessee, and holds an M.A. in Advertising from University of Florida, and a B.A. in Advertising and an M.A. in Communication from Wuhan University, China.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021
12:00PM – 1:00PM
Via Zoom

RSVP below. Instructions to attend talk via Zoom will be emailed to you.