Alexandra Sasha Luccioni (née Vorobyova; born 1990) is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

specializing in the intersection of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI) and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. Her work focuses on quantifying the environmental impact of AI technologies and promoting sustainable practices in

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

development.

Early life and education

Alexandra Sasha Vorobyova was born in the

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

in 1990. When she was four years old, her family relocated to

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Her interest in science is influenced by her family's history; her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all pursued careers in scientific fields. Luccioni earned a B.A. in language science from University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle in 2010. Subsequently, she completed a M.S. in

cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

, with a minor in

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

, at

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

in Paris in 2012. Luccioni obtained her PhD in

cognitive computing Cognitive computing refers to technology platforms that, broadly speaking, are based on the scientific disciplines of artificial intelligence and signal processing. These platforms encompass machine learning, reasoning, natural language proce ...

from

Université du Québec à Montréal The (UQAM; ), is a French language, French-language public university, public research university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the system. UQAM was founded on April 9, 1969, by the government o ...

(UQAM) in 2018.

Career

Luccioni began her professional career at

Nuance Communications Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, that markets speech recognition and artificial intelligence software. Nuance merged with its comp ...

in 2017, where she focused on natural language processing (NLP) and

(ML) techniques to enhance conversational agents. She then joined

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 42 countries and more than 80,000 employees, the firm's clients in ...

’s AI/ML Center of Excellence in 2018, working on explainable

(AI) and

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

systems. In 2019, she became a postdoctoral researcher at

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

and Mila, collaborating with computer scientist

Yoshua Bengio Yoshua Bengio (born March 5, 1964) is a Canadian-French computer scientist, and a pioneer of artificial neural networks and deep learning. He is a professor at the Université de Montréal and scientific director of the AI institute Montreal In ...

on a project titled ''This Climate Does Not Exist''. This initiative used

generative adversarial network A generative adversarial network (GAN) is a class of machine learning frameworks and a prominent framework for approaching generative artificial intelligence. The concept was initially developed by Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues in June ...

s to visualize the effects of

. During this time, she also contributed to integrating fairness and accountability into machine learning education at Mila. Luccioni briefly worked with the United Nations Global Pulse in 2021, developing tools to monitor

COVID-19 misinformation False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messagi ...

. Later that year, she joined

Hugging Face Hugging Face, Inc. is a French-American company based in List of tech companies in the New York metropolitan area, New York City that develops computation tools for building applications using machine learning. It is most notable for its Transf ...

as a research scientist. Her role includes quantifying the

carbon footprint A carbon footprint (or greenhouse gas footprint) is a calculated value or index that makes it possible to compare the total amount of greenhouse gases that an activity, product, company or country Greenhouse gas emissions, adds to the atmospher ...

of AI systems, co-chairing the carbon working group in the Big Science project, and advancing responsible machine learning practices. In addition to her research, she has developed tools to measure the environmental impact of AI models, communicated findings through media engagements, and presented at international conferences, including a

TED Talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

. In 2024, she was listed on

BBC 100 Women ''100 Women'' is a BBC multi-format series established in 2013. The annual series examines the role of women in the 21st century and has included events in London and Mexico. Announcement of the list is the start of an international "BBC's wome ...

and

Time 100 ''Time'' 100 is a list of the top 100 most influential people, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, politicians, and journalists, the list is now a highly ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luccioni, Sasha Living people 1990 births Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic people Soviet emigrants to Canada Ukrainian emigrants to Canada Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3 alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni Université du Québec à Montréal alumni Hugging Face people Natural language processing researchers Machine learning researchers 21st-century Ukrainian women scientists Ukrainian computer scientists Ukrainian women computer scientists