Maria Perez-Ortiz

Assistant Professor, AI Centre, University College London

Dr Maria Perez-Ortiz is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UK). She is co-founder and co-director of the first MSc programme on Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development, where she leads two courses on the intersection of emerging technologies, sustainability and ethics. Maria calls her line of work “Planet-centered AI”, developing responsible AI technologies for people, the planet and tackling the challenges of the geological era of the Anthropocene. Her vision for this field is that AI technologies bring specific possibilities and risks to our sustainability agenda, and we need to urgently align technology developments with the goals of our most important international social and environmental aims.

Her career is focused on creating the technical foundations for these AI technologies to truly support sustainable development. During the last 12 years, Perez-Ortiz has worked in areas as diverse as biomedicine (organ transplantation, skin cancer and human visual deficiencies), environmental sustainability (climate change, renewable energies and sustainable agriculture) and the educational technology field. Her work has been focused on creating these disruptive technologies, but also its real-world deployment and use. Perez-Ortiz has collaborated in fruitful research with the European Space Agency, the British Antarctic Survey, Apple, the Spanish Sustainable Agriculture Institute, the HumaneAI network, the Knowledge 4 All Foundation, Google’s DeepMind, OpenClimateFix, Spotify, multiple hospitals, as well as many universities around the world. In 2022, Perez-Ortiz did a Media Fellowship at WIRED, writing about technology for sustainability.

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