Thomas Skouteris Named 'Most Inspiring Legal Academic'

Can data be sexist? Can artificial intelligence discriminate? As AI has rapidly evolved over the past decade, researchers have revealed how biased data can disproportionately harm women and marginalized groups. Through the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at the Onsi Sawiris School of Business and its flagship initiative, the MENA Observatory on Responsible AI, Nagla Rizk ’83, ’87, professor of economics and founding director of A2K4D, leads the Feminist AI Research Network’s MENA hub. The network works to develop inclusive AI systems that create opportunities while addressing inequality.

From the plains of Kansas to the lush river deltas of southern Senegal, Mark Deets, assistant professor of African and world history in the Sultan Al-Qasimi Department of History and director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Center for American Studies and Research, seeks to understand how history and geography inform politics. A naval pilot turned historian, Deets has a rich diplomatic background that has helped him uncover the spatial history of West Africa, culminating in his debut award-winning book, A Country of Defiance: Mapping the Casamance in Senegal. 

Could a robot have painted the Mona Lisa? Will AI ever be the next Van Gogh? Brenda Segone is asking these very questions as she analyzes what it means for a machine learning model to “create” art.

The summer after his first year of university, Bernard O’Kane boarded a train from Ireland to Istanbul, emerging in a world of brightly colored tiles. The next year, he took the same train to Istanbul and boarded a boat to Alexandria to see the architecture of Egypt. He continued this habit a third summer, venturing further east from Turkey into Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The colorful art and architecture of the Islamic world captured O’Kane in a way he wasn’t able to shake then.Now a professor of Islamic art and architecture in the Sheikh Hassan Abbas Sharbatly Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, O’Kane’s love of travel never faded. He regularly visits places in the Middle East and Central Asia to investigate the historical architecture and tilework around the region. Most recently, O’Kane traveled to Turkmenistan, researching the tilework of monuments in Kuhna Urgench. This historical site was the capital of the Khorezm region with monuments including a mosque, the gates of a caravanserai, fortresses, mausoleums and a 60-meter-high minaret. O’Kane was drawn to the tilework, whose soulful colors have endured more than seven centuries.“Tilework is a particularly important form of Islamic art. It serves as a colorful, vibrant way to shape the identity of sacred and secular spaces,” he said.