Sandra Sandoval

I am happy to be working toward my PhD at the Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP) Lab of UMD, with my advisor Professor Hal Daumé III and other wonderful collaborators. One of my key interests is in identifying and better understanding the societal impacts of and considerations for language-based AI technologies, particularly as related to civil rights and human rights of technology stakeholders. I am equally interested in applying data analytics and data science methods to language data as well as data of other modalities, to better understand questions of social and global importance. In both cases, I seek to understand and contribute to the use of AI technologies and AI-assisted analysis to help humanity and the earth, i.e., to improve (sustainably) the conditions under which people work and live, particularly those populations that have been traditionally marginalized.

I am currently developing expertise in technical methods to support explainability of and statistical insights into AI technologies, as well as approaches for human computer interaction and development of human-centered NLP applications. Importantly, I also seek and embrace multidisciplinary research and mixed methods approaches, drawing from (but not limited to) the fields of sociolinguistics, sociology, psychology and communications, among others.

I came to UMD after working 11 years in the federal government in various analytical roles, culminating in my final post as a government Data Scientist. Prior to serving in the government, I obtained my Master of International Affairs, with an emphasis in Economic and Political Development, from Columbia University in the City of New York. Prior to that, I worked in various roles as a database analyst and developer. My alma mater is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I obtained my Bachelor of Science in Economics.