Adji Bousso Dieng facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Adji Bousso Dieng
Born	Kaolack, Senegal
Nationality	Senegalese
Alma mater	Columbia University Cornell University Télécom ParisTech Lycée Henri-IV
Known for	Deep Probabilistic Graphical Modeling, Founder of The Africa I Know
Awards	Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Learning, Rising Star in Machine Learning, Columbia GSAS Outstanding Recent Alumni Award, Columbia University Dean Fellowship, Cornell Institute for African Development Fellowship, Savage Award
Scientific career
Fields	Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Statistics
Institutions	Google Brain Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	David Blei, John Paisley

Adji Bousso Dieng is a brilliant Senegalese scientist. She works with Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Computer Scientist and Statistician. Her research helps computers learn from information that isn't clearly labeled. She does this by combining different computer methods.

Right now, she's an AI Research Scientist at Google Brain in California. In 2021, she made history by becoming a professor at Princeton University. She was the first Black woman professor in their School of Engineering and Applied Science. She was also the first Black professor ever in their Computer Science department. Adji also started a non-profit group called “The Africa I Know” (TAIK). This group aims to inspire young Africans to work in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and AI. It does this by showing them successful African role models.

Early Life and Education

Adji Bousso Dieng was born and grew up in Kaolack, Senegal. Her parents owned a fabric business to support their large family of 15 children. Her father passed away when she was four. But her mother made sure that education was always the most important thing for the family. Adji went to public schools in Kaolack for both elementary and high school.

During high school, Adji was recognized for being a great student. She won a prize in the Senegalese Olympiad for Philosophy. She was also chosen to join a special camp for excellent students. This led to her winning a scholarship to study abroad.

Adji then moved to Paris to attend Lycée Henri-IV, a public high school. After that, she went to Télécom ParisTech in France. This is a top engineering school. She spent her third year of studies at Cornell University in the United States. In 2013, she earned her engineering degree from Télécom ParisTech. She also received a Master's degree in Applied Statistics from Cornell University.

After working at the World Bank for a year, Adji started her PhD in Statistics at Columbia University. She worked with her advisors to connect different computer modeling methods with deep learning. This helped her find important patterns in data that wasn't labeled. Her work helped with things like understanding language, computer vision, and healthcare. Adji's PhD work received many awards. These included the Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Learning and the Savage Award. She was the first Black woman to win the Savage Award since it started in 1977. She was also the second Black woman to graduate from the Statistics department at Columbia University.

Career and Research

In 2019, Adji joined Google Brain as an AI Research Scientist. Before working at Google, she interned at other big AI companies. These included Microsoft Research and DeepMind. She also worked with Yann LeCun at Facebook AI Research. In 2013, Adji worked at the World Bank. She helped with risk modeling there. She left the World Bank in 2014 after getting a special fellowship from Columbia University to start her PhD. She still works part-time at Google Brain.

In 2021, Adji became an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton University. This was a very important step. She is the first Black professor in Computer Science in Princeton's history. She is also the first Black woman professor in Princeton's School of Engineering. And she is only the second Black woman professor in Computer Science across all the Ivy League universities.

At Princeton, Adji started her own research lab called Vertaix. This lab focuses on how AI can be used in natural sciences. Her team creates new AI methods and algorithms. These are inspired by real-world problems in science. Adji uses tools from machine learning and deep learning. She develops ways to learn from different types of scientific data. She is also working on a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Adji is also an AI2050 Early Career Fellow. This fellowship is from Schmidt Futures. As part of this, she is creating a way to measure how diverse an AI model is. She is inspired by how scientists measure biodiversity in nature. This helps her figure out if an AI model is biased.

Adji has written many research papers. These have been published in top AI conferences.

Important Research

• Friedman, Dan, and Adji Bousso Dieng. "The Vendi Score: A Diversity Evaluation Metric for Machine Learning." (2022). This paper introduces a new way to measure how diverse an AI model is. It also helps find bias. This new method works better than older ones.

Advocacy

Adji Dieng was born in Kaolack, Senegal. She has lived on three different continents. But she always speaks up for her home continent, Africa. In May 2022, she spoke at a big meeting in Dakar. This was the yearly Conference of African Ministers. She talked about how important it is for Africa to have STEM education. She also spoke about the things needed to make this happen. She was one of five young Africans invited to talk about the role of young people. These invitations came from the United Nations' Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

The Africa I Know

Adji founded a non-profit organization called “The Africa I Know” (TAIK). Its goal is to change how people see Africa in a positive way. It also wants to create opportunities for young Africans. Adji noticed that the media often showed Africa in a wrong way. This became even clearer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another goal of TAIK is to give young Africans role models. Many young Africans don't see people who look like them succeeding in STEM. Most people also don't know about the rich history of STEM and AI from Africa. TAIK inspires young Africans to work in STEM and AI. It also shares information about African contributions in these fields. And it teaches people about Africa's rich history. Since it started in 2020, TAIK has grown a lot. It now has 12 employees and thousands of followers online.

Awards and Honors

• 2023 - Received Columbia University's Outstanding Recent Alumni Award
• 2022 - Named AI2050 Early Career Fellow from Schmidt Futures
• 2022 - Received the 2022 Annie T. Randall award
• 2020 - Named one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans
• 2020 - Received the Savage Award for her PhD thesis
• 2019 - Named a Rising Star in Machine Learning (University of Maryland)
• 2019 - Received the Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Learning
• 2016 - Received the Microsoft Azure Research Award
• 2014 - Received the Columbia University Dean Fellowship
• 2013 - Received the Cornell Institute for African Development Fellowship
• 2007 - Received the Pathfinder Foundation Scholarship
• 2006 - Received the Senegalese Government Excellence Scholarship
• 2006 - Won the Senegalese Olympiad in Philosophy

Images for kids

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  Adji Bousso Dieng