Graduate Student Winner
Mehrgol Tiv, McGill University
Essay Title: "AI for Social Good: How Psychological Researchers Can Contribute to the Socially Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence"
Mehrgol Tiv is a doctoral student in experimental psychology at McGill University’s Department of Psychology. Her research aims to answer how bilinguals make complex social inferences to understand one another during intergroup communication. Tiv is particularly interested in how diverse social identities impact cognitive and neural processing of language. She is also an advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion in science and academia.
Undergraduate Student Winner
Sumona Gupta, The University of Alabama
Essay Title: "Deep Poverty and Shallow Trenches: The Human Right to Sanitation in Alabama’s Black Belt"
Sumona Gupta is a senior at the University of Alabama majoring in Socio-Legal Studies. Her focus is immigration law and policy, as she has researched the effects of Alabama’s discriminatory immigration laws, lobbied lawmakers to uphold the Dream and Promise Act for Temporary Protected Status holders, and aided in the legal defense of detained immigrant adults and children. Though overall, Gupta aims to examine how social forces and legal institutions interact and react to one another.
Honorable Mention
Anna Lee Ali, University of London
Essay Title: "Samantha’s #MeToo: examining the idea of consent in sex robots (sexbots)"
Anna Lee Ali, an economist by training, is pursuing a Bachelor of Laws degree with the University of London on a part-time basis. She is a second year student and is passionate about human and animal rights. Overwhelmed by the perceived injustices in the world, she hopes to utilize her acquired legal knowledge to assist and defend the most vulnerable in society. Ali is a economist by training.
The authors of the two winning essays will each receive one year of membership in AAAS, which among other benefits includes 51 weekly issues of Science, online access to Science articles and the Science archive, networking opportunities within the AAAS community and more.
Many thanks to the judges:
Affiliations provided for identification purposes only
Diaa A. Ahmed |
Independent Research Professional |
Andrea Boggio |
Bryant University |
Michael Cohen |
American Institutes for Research |
Uvetta Dozier |
Bowie State University |
Martin Fernandez |
AAAS Research Competitiveness Program |
Symma Finn |
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences |
Joseph Flores-Toro |
University of Florida |
Irene Fogarty |
University College Dublin |
Mark Frezzo |
University of Mississippi |
Cathy Furlong |
Statistics Without Borders |
Juan C. Gallardo |
American Physical Society |
Joanne Heininger |
AAAS Member Experience & Engagement |
Michele Irwin |
American Physical Society |
Arthur Kendall |
Capital Area Social Psychology Association |
Se Kim |
AAAS Programs |
Jerome Krase |
Brooklyn College |
Arthur J. Lustig |
Tulane University |
Vikram Singh Prasher |
University of Massachusetts Lowell |
Mindy Reiser |
Member of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition |
Caroline Schuerger |
Case-Western Reserve University |
Liljana Stevceva |
Medical Education and Research Institute |
Laureen Summers |
AAAS Project on Science, Technology and Disability |
Neil Thivalapill |
Harvard School of Public Health |
Jeffrey Toney |
Kean University |
Ann T. Torrusio |
University of Missouri St. Louis Honors College |
Carol Valoris |
Committee of Concerned Scientists |
Edward J. Walsh |
Acoustical Society of America |
Brad Wible |
Science |
Jessica Wyndham |
AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program |