Chinasa T. Okolo, Ph.D.

I Chinasa T. Okolo is the Founder of Technēculturǎ and a former Fellow at Brookings. She recently graduated with a Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, where her research leveraged ethnographic methods to understand how frontline healthcare workers in rural India perceive and value AI and analyzed how AI explainability can meet the needs of novice technology users in the Global Majority. Her work has been published at top-tier venues in HCI and sociotechnical computing, including the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) CHI, CSCW, COMPASS, EAAMO, and FAccT conferences. Dr. Okolo has also been recognized as one of the world’s most influential people in AI by TIME Magazine, honored in the inaugural Forbes 30 Under 30 AI list, named one of the Most Influential Africans of 2024 by New African Magazine, a Trailblazer in Engineering, and one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™.

Dr. Okolo's research examines how African governments can effectuate robust AI and data governance, investigates the geopolitical impacts of AI, and analyzes datafication and algorithmic marginalization in Africa. Her general research interests include AI governance, AI safety, AI literacy, explainable AI, and African development. Her work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, MacArthur Foundation, McGovern Foundation, Kapor Center, The National GEM Consortium, Oracle Corporation, the North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Google and covered in venues like VICE, Bloomberg, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and VentureBeat, amongst others. She has been invited to share her work at industry research labs, including Google Research India, Microsoft Research India, and the Microsoft Africa Research Institute (MARI). She has also been featured in TechCrunch and provided commentary to leading outlets such as MIT Technology Review, NPR, the New York Times, BBC, VICE, Scientific American, Fast Company, Voice of America, Rest of World, SEMAFOR, and Devex.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Pomona College, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University. She has also served as a Consulting Expert with the African Union, an Expert Contributing Writer to the International AI Safety Report, a Drafting Member of the Nigerian Federal Government National AI Strategy, the Editor-in-Chief of ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, a member of the IEEE Standards Association working group on algorithmic bias, and a contributing member of the ACM US Technology Policy Committee.