20. Anima Anandkumar - The Immediate and Future Impact of How We Build AI

Utility + Function

Anima Anandkumar is Director of Machine Learning at NVIDIA and Bren professor at Caltech. Anima has led research in tensor-algebraic methods, large-scale learning, deep learning, probabilistic models, and non-convex optimization, among others.

She is the youngest named professor at Caltech, the highest honor bestowed to an individual faculty. She is part of the World Economic Forum's Expert Network consisting of leading experts from academia, business, government, and the media.

She is the recipient of several awards including Alfred. P. Sloan Fellowship, NSF Career Award, Young investigator awards from the Air Force and Army research offices, Faculty fellowships from Microsoft, Google and Adobe, and several best paper awards.

Anima Anandkumar is also deeply passionate about democratizing AI and eliminating bias in the data we use to build AI systems as well as the other subtle ways bias infiltrates research, device-building, and industry. She is spearheading important research and groundbreaking work that is changing our model for AI and its impact on the world we all live in.