ACL 2021 Queer in AI Social

Queer in AI is throwing virtual socials at ACL-IJCNLP 2021. People of all identities (including allies) are invited to attend. ACL-IJCNLP registration is not required to attend the social.

Overview & How to Join

We are organizing two 1.5 hour socials. All socials will be in Queer in AI's gather town.

Social A: 4:00AM GMT on Sunday, Aug 1st (convert to your timezone)

Social B: 4:00PM GMT on Sunday, Aug 1st (convert to your timezone)

To join, check-in by filling up this form.

Reach out to the organizers directly by emailing to queer-in-nlp@googlegroups.com.

Structure

The first 15 mins of the socials will include a presentation from the organizers including code of conduct. Over the next 45 minutes, the speakers will then give talks and we'll hear from our sponsors. The remainder of the social will consist of discussions (formal and informal) in small groups.

Speakers

Joanne Leung (she/her) [Social A Speaker]: Joanne is the founder and chairperson of Transgender Resource Center in Hong Kong since 2008, as well as the former chairperson of Pink Alliance, two active non-governmental organizations that aim to serve the LGBT community and promote LGBT equality. She is a pioneer in the transgender movement and a public figure in the LGBT movement devoted to supporting works in the community as well as advocacy for LGBT rights in Hong Kong and Mainland China which has received numerous honors. She joined the Hong Kong Democratic Party which seen as the first transgender politician in Hong Kong, participated in the 2016 pre-election of the Hong Kong Legislative Council with the highest support ranking in the public opinion survey within the Democratic Party. In 2018 she has received the Prism Award from HKLGFF to honour people with enormous impact in advancing LGBT rights in Hong Kong. (Twitter: joanneleung36)

Krithika Ramesh (she/her) [Social B speaker]: Krithika Ramesh is a fourth year undergraduate student from India, currently pursuing her Bachelor's degree in Information Technology from MIT, Manipal. Her interests lie in the field of bias in language models and how it can be mitigated, and she is also keen on delving further into research related to data privacy and the environmental sustainability of AI. She's also a mentor at the Research Society Manipal, an initiative founded to provide a support system and involve more undergraduate students in research. Apart from this, she has a vivid interest in medieval fantasy, RPGs and river otters!

Organizers

For any concerns or questions, please reach out to any of us either on Rocketchat or our contact info given in our websites. Your concerns will be kept confidential.

Sabine Weber (she/her): She is a queer PhD student at the University of Edinburgh researching predicate entailment while being annoyed about the lack of multilingual tools. Her office has a unicorn. In her free time she misses Berlin, naps and makes lino print art. (Twitter: @multilingual_s)

Luca Soldaini (he/him): is an Applied Scientist at Amazon, where he works on QA models to make sure that Alexa can respond to questions such as "Who is the best dancer in RuPaul Drag Race?". His research interests include generative and ranking models for spoken language understanding systems. In his free time, he enjoys running, dreaming about utopian mass transit systems, and curating his laptop stickers collection. (Twitter: @soldni)

Mike (Moike) McKenna (he/they): Moike is a queer data scientist and lawyer at CVS. Normally he designs chatbots for prescription adherence, but right now he's working on CVS's vaccination equity program. He strongly believes BERT and ERNIE are a couple but (sips tea) that's none of Kermit's business. Because of two intercontinental relocations in spring, he's experienced 5 winters and 1 summer in the last 3 years. He has two pythons, a kangaroo, and a drop bear as pets.

Gauri Gupta (she/her): Gauri is an undergraduate student at Manipal Institute of Technology, India. She is interested in AI Ethics, particularly bias in language models. She chaired the women in computing community and co-founded an organization that is now a safe space for queer folks at her university!

Milind Agarwal (he/they): Milind is a recent master's graduate from Johns Hopkins University. Their research interests include low resource and endangered language NLP, machine translation, and AI ethics. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, talking to his plants, and painting with watercolors. (Twitter: @milind__agarwal)

Code of Conduct and Reporting

Please read Queer in AI code of conduct which will be strictly followed in the social. Recording (screen recording or screenshots) is prohibited. All participants are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the members.

ACL 2021 adheres to the ACL’s code of ethics, ACL’s anti-harassment policy, and ACL’s code of conduct. Any participant who experiences harassment or hostile behavior may contact any current member of the ACL Executive Committee or contact Priscilla Rasmussen, who is usually available at the registration desk of the conference. Please be assured that if you approach us, your concerns will be kept in strict confidence, and we will consult with you on any actions taken

All sessions and socials of Queer in AI adheres to Queer in AI Anti-harassment policy. Any participant who experiences harassment or hostile behavior may contact Queer in AI Safety Team (ANYTIME). Please be assured that if you approach us, your concerns will be kept in strict confidence, and we will consult with you on any actions taken.

Credits for the Pride ACL logo: Cassidy Henry and Emma Manning from this thread.