Instructor Anna Sappington Sees Biology as Untapped Data Source Ready for AI Applications, But Not Without Barriers in Bias and Ethics
RESEARCH IN AI
Anna Sappington is an MIT alumna with a masters degree in machine learning, primarily focused on AI applications involving genomics and medical data. She's excited about the potential for AI to aid in understanding big and complicated data types like these. There's so much data generated in biology, and a lot of it is untapped -- especially compared to data from, say, social networks, product reviews, and other recommendation algorithms. Anna thinks there's a lot of potential to do good, and is happy to see more discussion and research surrounding bias and algorithmic fairness; so that we can make sure the AI being developed truly does the good it is intended to do.
STUDENTS
Students appreciate Anna's engaging energy and helpful guidance throughout the process of building their AI projects.
"Anna was extremely helpful throughout the entire project. She was very good at guiding us through the problem in a way where the students were the driving force of the project. The material was complicated, but she helped us understand it to the point where we could write the code on our own. She was always extremely helpful when we needed her and always kept the zooms entertaining and fun."
HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHAT TO STUDY IN COLLEGE? WHEN DID AI BECOME A PART OF YOUR RESEARCH?
In middle and high school, I really wanted additional challenge and learning opportunities outside of the classroom. This led me to get involved in science fairs, which in turn taught me a lot about generating and analyzing data. I was always interested in biological questions and trying to figure out the molecular and genomic reasons behind effects I'd observe in my experiments. This ultimately introduced me to coding because I'd have to write scripts to make sense of the data I'd collect.
So entering college, I chose to study a joint major called Computer Science and Molecular Biology! It wasn't until fairly late in my undergraduate studies that I started teaching myself machine learning to help with a research project I was working on at the time. I was so excited by the possibilities of being able to model really complicated data that I started taking classes in AI and ML, and have since even done a master's degree in ML too!
ADVICE TO STUDENTS?
Definitely take a class or two in AI (and in coding!) during your careers. These are skills that will be useful no matter what subject or profession you go into and will allow you to partake in what will be some of the most important societal debates going forward.
