At AIces 2026, we are pleased to welcome Savannah Thais, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Hunter College, City University of New York, where she leads the Science, Society, and AI Lab. Thais brings a unique interdisciplinary perspective to the event, combining deep technical knowledge with insights from governance, policy, and ethics.

Dr. Thais’ course at AIces 2026, “Measurement for Safer AI,” explores the crucial role of how we evaluate AI systems — especially as large models become more general-purpose yet remain opaque and difficult to assess reliably. Her work confronts a growing challenge in AI today:establishing rigorous, meaningful metrics that meaningfully correspond to safety, fairness, robustness, and real-world impact.

The course covers:

  • Foundations of measurement for safe AI, emphasizing why metrics matter for transparency and governance
  • Fairness, bias, and representation, including tradeoffs and limits of quantitative fairness metrics
  • Robustness and interpretability, with approaches to evaluate reliability under distribution shifts
  • Benchmarking practices, metric design, and participatory evaluation methods
  • Measurement pitfalls and how frameworks can be integrated into auditing and regulatory contexts

Dr. Thais’ research background includes mechanistic interpretability, AI for Science, and quantitative frameworks that bridge technical rigor with policy relevance. Prior to her academic career, she worked on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, applying her technical expertise to complex, data-intensive problems.

Her scientific and policy contributions have been recognized through leadership roles, including service on the American Physical Society Panel on Public Affairs and participation on the Board of Directors of Women in Machine Learning from 2019 to 2024.

Participants in Savannah Thais’ course at AIces 2026 will gain a richer understanding of why measurement is foundational to building safer, more trustworthy AI—and how thoughtful evaluation practices can shape better governance and societal outcomes.

Register for AIces 2026: https://aices.irdta.eu/2026/registration/
Event details: https://aices.irdta.eu/2026/