tallal.ahmad(at)wisc.edu

News

September 2026: I joined the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy in Bochum, Germany, as a Visiting Researcher in Abraham Mhaidli's Technology Harm Prevention Group. I'll be working on how domain-specific ethical frameworks shape AI deployment in fields like healthcare.
July 2026: I'm excited to share that my paper "'We're Not Doing Ethical AI, We're Doing Legal AI': How Compliance Shapes Responsible AI Practice," has been accepted to the AIES 2026. I'll be presenting it in Malmö, Sweden, in October 🎉.
December 2025: I’m excited to share that a paper I co-authored has been accepted to CSCW 2026. The paper titled 'Beyond Bias Detection: Community Auditors and Normative Reasoning in AI Oversight'. Read the summary: How everyday people can spot risks that expert AI audits might miss
October 2025: I'm attending CSCW 2025 in Bergen, Norway and will be attending the Doctoral Consortium.
June 2025: I'm thrilled to share that my doctoral research proposal, "Bridging the Gap: Translating AI Regulations into Socio-Technical Measures for Responsible AI," has been accepted to the Doctoral Consortium at CSCW 2025! 🎉
April 2025: 🎉 Exciting milestone: I’m officially a PhD candidate! After successfully passing my preliminary examination and program portfolio review, I’ve advanced to candidacy in the Information School at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
July 2024: I joined the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy in Bochum, Germany, as a summer Research intern. I'll be working on the harms of AI decision-making, focusing on bias, fairness, and ethical solutions.

About Me

Hi, I'm Tallal. I'm a PhD candidate at the Information School, University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am currently a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy in Bochum, Germany. I'm also a Graduate Fellow at the Institute for Diversity Science and the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies.

I study how ethical responsibility gets claimed, assigned, and refused around computing systems. Put simply, I want to know who has the standing to call something a harm. My dissertation asks this inside technology organizations, where compliance often crowds out ethical deliberation, and among AI practitioners in Pakistan, where no regulatory regime applies. Before my PhD, I spent close to a decade doing applied research in Pakistan on financial services, mobile, and health, with the Gates Foundation, Women's World Banking, Google's Next Billion Users initiative, My Oral Village, and UNICEF. More on my Research and Projects pages.

I am on the academic job market for postdoctoral and tenure-track positions in Responsible AI and HCI,

Outside research, I follow cricket, hike, take road trips, and watch a lot of stand-up comedy and sitcoms.

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