Mona Sloane – Keynote Speaker

Dr. Mona Sloane is a sociologist and internationally recognized expert on the social implications of design and technology. Her work focuses on the intersection of inequality and artificial intelligence (AI) and she frequently publishes and speaks about AI, ethics, risk, equity and policy, particularly in the US-EU context.

In 2020, Dr. Sloane was named to the Women in AI Ethics™ Hall of Fame for her exceptional contributions to the space of AI ethics and diversity. She was also named one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ in 2019 and 2021.

Dr. Mona Sloane is an experienced public speaker, moderator and writer. Her bylines have appeared in The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, MIT Technology Review, Project Syndicate, BRINK and other venues. She is frequently quoted in popular media outlets, such as The Atlantic, Aljazeera, or Mashable, and provides expert testimonies for policy makers.

Dr. Sloane regularly speaks at international venues and events, such as the Politico AI Summit, the European Commission, the American Council on Germany, the Magical Startups Digital Summit Chile, or the Carnegie Council. In 2021, Dr. Sloane served as judge for the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 Contest.

At New York University, Dr. Sloane runs her own event series called “Co-Opting AI” where she regularly hosts renowned experts such as Kara Swisher or Ruha Benjamin. She also co-curates an event series called “The Shift”, a collaboration with the Knight Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and Civic Signals that focuses on the social changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. At NYU Tandon’s School of Engineering, Dr. Sloane serves as Adjunct Professor of Technology, Culture and Society, as well as an Affiliate of the NYU Center for Responsible AI, where she focuses on conducting cutting-edge interdisciplinary research to develop, implement, and disseminate best-in-class open-source tools and frameworks for operationalizing responsibility at all stages of the AI lifecycle.

Dr. Mona Sloane also is a Fellow with the NYU-based action research lab The GovLab, where she works with Stefaan Verhulst on AI localism, a new phenomenon of local governance innovation in AI. Dr. Sloane also is the Technology Editor for Public Books, a digital magazine hosted between Columbia University and NYU. She is part of the inaugural cohort of the Future Imagination Collaboratory (FIC) Fellows at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she runs an art project on AI and the climate emergency.

Currently, Dr. Sloane leads the “Terra Incognita NYC” research project, which focuses on understanding how New Yorkers create public space on digital platforms. She also runs the “AI Procurement” project, a collaboration with Dr. Rumman Chowdhury (Founder and CEO of Parity), and John C. Havens (IEEE Standards Association), which is focused on innovating AI procurement to center equity and justice. Together with Emmy Award-winning journalist Hilke Schellmann, Dr. Sloane also works on the use of AI systems in hiring. At the Tübingen AI Center in Germany Dr. Sloane leads research on the operationalization of ethics in German AI startups.

Dr. Mona Sloane holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science and has completed fellowships at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Cape Town.