I am so honored to have been chosen as a Scholar! I couldn’t have done it without the help of my community at UW and beyond. Incredibly grateful to everyone, and equally excited to keep going and do some more great research! 🏆🙏✨

University of Washington Information School@ischool.uw.edu · 4mo ago

Information School Ph.D. student Kyra Wilson has been named a 2026 Apple Scholar in AIML. Wilson is advised by Prof. Aylin Caliskan and is focusing on AI for Ethics and Fairness. Congratulations, Kyra! @kyrawilson.bsky.social Read the announcement: machinelearning.apple.com/updates/appl...

We know AI is biased, but what does that do to people's hiring decisions? (Spoiler alert: nothing good) To address this, @aylincaliskan.bsky.social and I wrote about legal implications and policy suggestions to protect people's rights and autonomy @brookings.edu www.brookings.edu/articles/ais...

AI's threat to individual autonomy in hiring decisions | Brookings

Kyra Wilson and Aylin Caliskan discuss new research on AI's influence in decision-making and what this portends for policymakers.

urldefense.com

And here is the presentation I gave on networking, self-promo, and how to make the most out of a conference. Hope this helps for everyone at NeurIPS! www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hG...

Conferencemaxxing: How to grow your profile and network as a scientist

YouTube video by Michael Saxon (NLP & Generative AI research)

youtube.com

We took on a powerful incumbent who was expected to coast to reelection. We faced more corporate PAC money than has ever been spent attacking a candidate in a Seattle election. We built a people-powered movement rooted in hope for our city’s future. And we won. This is YOUR city!

"No Thoughts Just AI: Biased LLM Hiring Recommendations Alter Human Decision Making and Limit Human Autonomy" by @kyrawilson.bsky.social et al It shows how people trust AI hiring proposals blindly, even when the AI's being racist. This highlights the importance to tackle algorithmic bias

Thanks to @uwnews.uw.edu for covering my + @aylincaliskan.bsky.social's recent work published at AIES 2025! www.washington.edu/news/2025/11...

People mirror AI systems’ hiring biases, study finds

In a new UW study, 528 participants worked with simulated AI systems to select job candidates. The researchers simulated different levels of racial biases for resumes from white, Black, Hispanic and.....

washington.edu

🚨New paper: Reward Models (RMs) are used to align LLMs, but can they be steered toward user-specific value/style preferences? With EVALUESTEER, we find even the best RMs we tested exhibit their own value/style biases, and are unable to align with a user >25% of the time. 🧵

Happy to share that I’m presenting 3 research projects at AIES 2025 🎉 1️⃣Gender bias over-representation in AI bias research 👫 2️⃣Stable Diffusion's skin tone bias 🧑🏻🧑🏽🧑🏿 3️⃣Limitations of human oversight in AI hiring 👤🤖 Let's chat if you’re at AIES or read below/reach out for details! #AIES25 #AcademicSky

Applying for a #PhD @ischool.uw.edu? Read 👇 Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025. Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.

Tesla is being hit with $329m in damages for a crash in which the human driver says he knew Autopilot wasn't self-driving. This is super important, because it shows that Autopilot's design and marketing can induce inattention even when drivers consciously know they are supposed to pay attention.

📣 Exceptional resource alert from @ucblaborcenter.bsky.social: a database of U.S. union bargaining provisions related to workplace tech. laborcenter.berkeley.edu/negotiating-... Workers need a voice in how tech is utilized in the workplace— and here are 175 blueprints for what that looks like

There’s a lot of evil stuff. But these few sentences are a result of wild corruption, and would remove any guardrails against AI systems being used for massive civil and humans rights abuses on an unimaginable scale. Call your congresspeople, and scream about it in the streets.

Brian Merchant@bcmerchant.bsky.social · last yr.

This is insane. Republicans have inserted language into the budget reconciliation bill that would ban states from regulating AI in any capacity for 10 years. from @404media.co www.404media.co/republicans-...

I’m in this article along with other @uaw4121.bsky.social members to explain what’s happening to grad student researchers in the US right now. It’s not looking great for us, and it’s looking even worse for America.

NBC News@nbcnews.com · last yr.

The Trump administration’s slowdown in science funding has left U.S.-based scientists and researchers scrambling to find homes for promising work that could lead to medical treatments and cures. Now, many are looking abroad.

So: In 2017, Congress made this happen: NIH: Proposed 22% cut --> 9% increase NSF: Proposed 11% cut --> 4% increase NOAA: Proposed 16% cut --> 4% increase Obviously, 2025 is not 2017. A lot is diff now. But still: 💰 Congress, not WH, sets budgets. 📞 Public support & calls to Congress matter.

I wrote a post on how to connect with people (i.e., make friends) at CS conferences. These events can be intimidating so here's some suggestions on how to navigate them I'm late for #ICLR2025 #NAACL2025, but in time for #AISTATS2025 #ICML2025! 1/3 kamathematics.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/t...

Tips on How to Connect at Academic Conferences

I was a kinda awkward teenager. If you are a CS researcher reading this post, then chances are, you were too. How to navigate social situations and make friends is not always intuitive, and has to …

kamathematics.wordpress.com

Excited to announce our #NAACL2025 Oral paper! 🎉✨ We carried out the largest systematic study so far to map the links between upstream choices, intrinsic bias, and downstream zero-shot performance across 131 CLIP Vision-language encoders, 26 datasets, and 55 architectures!

Faculty at the University of Washington, please sign, and please help us spread the word! Link the letter is below.

Hundreds of UW faculty members sign open letter opposing staff layoffs in College of Arts & Sciences

Approximately 270 UW faculty members have signed an open letter condemning a proposed plan to lay off staff in the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS), calling the decision “deeply

dailyuw.com

🗞️ Hot off the press! 🗞️ @aylincaliskan.bsky.social and I wrote a blog post about how to make resume screening with AI more equitable based findings from our work presented at AIES in 2024. Major takeaways ⬇️ (1/6) www.brookings.edu/articles/gen...

Gender, race, and intersectional bias in AI resume screening via language model retrieval

Kyra Wilson and Aylin Caliskan examine gender, race, and intersectional bias in AI resume screening and suggest protective policies.

brookings.edu

Urgently reposting! University leadership need to actively check the SEVIS database every day (studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub). Ask your chair to commit to it. Yesterday, UW discovered 9 visa cancellations & only found out b/c they ran a status check. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

UW students’ visas revoked without notice by Trump administration

The University of Washington plans to provide the affected students access to legal services that are paid for by their student fees.

seattletimes.com

Liz Neeley@lizneeley.bsky.social · last yr.

A concrete ask for every department head: commit to checking SEVIS portal every day. Student visa revocation emails go to address they applied with - potentially consultants/brokers. Correct & current info is a specific, urgent need. If you don't have access, find out who does & make same ask.

Co-Director @aylincaliskan.bsky.social and Faculty Associate @emilymbender.bsky.social were recognized by @brookings.edu for being an important (un)Hidden Figures in AI. www.brookings.edu/articles/rec...

Recognizing the (un)Hidden Figures in AI

The AI Equity Lab highlights leading voices and figures in artificial intelligence in recognition of Women's History Month.

brookings.edu

“Many of these men fancied themselves to be a cut above the [women] programmers who came before, and they often perceived COBOL as inferior and unattractive, in part because it did not require abstruse knowledge of underlying computer hardware or a computer science qualification.”

Built to Last

Don’t blame COBOL. Blame austerity.

logicmag.io

This exciting resolution from Rutgers University Senate is exactly the kind of model I think higher ed needs: a mutual defense pact of, in this case, Big 10 schools. They call for member institutions to create a joint defense fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.

UW’s @techpolicylab.bsky.social and I invite applications for a 2-year Postdoctoral Researcher position in "AI Alignment with Ethical Principles" focusing on language technologies, societal impact, and tech policy. Kindly share! apply.interfolio.com/162834 Priority review deadline: 3/28/2025

Show up to tell the Trump administration: our research and our jobs need funding, not freezes! RSVP here: www.labor4highered.org

Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO@wslc.bsky.social · last yr.

@uaw4121.bsky.social, in partnership with other local unions, is organizing a rally at the Portage Bay Vista on the UW Seattle campus at 12 p.m. on Wednesday, February 19. Labor siblings and supporters are encouraged to attend. thestand.org/2025/02/rall...

One concrete thing everybody can do to support federal workers is participate in (and spread the word about) the February 19 Save Our Services day of action bit.ly/SOSaction

The Responsibility in AI Systems & Experiences at UW is excited to host a Winter research exhibition on Feb 29 in Seattle. Info about our keynote speaker, accepted posters and a link to RSVP are on the event page now! www.raise.uw.edu/winterexposi...

Nice article explaining unwanted bias in hiring stemming from the use of artificial intelligence with extensive quotations from @kyrawilson.bsky.social and Moninder Singh. www.ibm.com/think/news/a...

How AI can help the recruitment process—without hurting it | IBM

AI agents for recruiters are time-savers—but experts caution that developers need to make sure they're unbiased. Find out what data scientists and engineers are doing to mitigate bias in AI-driven rec...

ibm.com

#geekwire - #AI overwhelmingly prefers white and male job candidates in new test of resume-screening bias #Blackmen fared the worst with the models preferring other candidates nearly 100% of the time. www.geekwire.com/2024/ai-over...

AI overwhelmingly prefers white and male job candidates in new test of resume-screening bias

Kyra Wilson, left, University of Washington doctoral student in the Information School and Aylin Caliskan, a UW assistant professor in the iSchool. (UW

geekwire.com