Penn State Team Lion-0xA Selected as Global Finalist in 2026 Amazon Nova AI Challenge
Thrilled to be part of Team Lion-0xA, representing Penn State as one of 10 global finalists in the 2026 Amazon Nova AI Challenge!
Our team, a collaboration between the College of Information Sciences and Technology and the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was selected from hundreds of applications worldwide to tackle one of AI’s most pressing frontiers: building agentic AI systems that are both capable and trustworthy.
We’re competing as a Red Team, which means our mission is to probe AI coding agents for vulnerabilities and identify potential security risks. This work sits right at the intersection of my research in adversarial machine learning, cybersecurity, and NLP. There’s something deeply rewarding about applying offensive security thinking to make AI systems safer for everyone.
Proud to work alongside an amazing group of teammates under the guidance of Dr. Dongwon Lee.
I completed my Ph.D. in Informatics at Penn State University (defended May 2026; formal conferral August 2026), where I conducted research at the PIKE Research Lab under Dr. Dongwon Lee and the College of IST. Starting August 2026, I will join the Department of Information Science at the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMDI), University of Colorado Boulder, as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor and founding Director of the Secure and Ethical AI Lab (SEAL). My research advances trustworthy and equitable AI for the world’s languages and communities — spanning multilingual NLP, low-resource and dialectal language technology, AI safety, and information integrity, with work extending across 70+ languages. I have authored 14+ peer-reviewed papers with 315+ citations in premier venues including ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, ICML, KDD, and IEEE.
My doctoral research focuses on bridging the digital language divide through transfer learning, classification (NLU), generation (NLG), adversarial attacks, and developing end-to-end AI pipelines using RAG and Agentic AI workflows for combating multilingual threats. Drawing from my Grenadian background and knowledge of local Creole languages, I bring a global perspective to AI challenges, working to democratize state-of-the-art AI capabilities for underserved linguistic communities worldwide. My mission is to develop robust multilingual multimodal systems and mitigate evolving security vulnerabilities while enhancing access to human language technology through cutting-edge solutions.
As an NSF LinDiv Fellow, I conduct transdisciplinary research advancing human-AI language interaction for social good. I actively mentor 5+ research interns and teach Applied Generative AI courses. Through industry experience at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Interaction LLC, and Coalfire, I bridge academic research with practical applications in combating evolving security threats and enhancing global AI accessibility. I see multilingual advances and interdisciplinary collaboration as a competitive advantage, not a communication challenge. Beyond research, I stay active through dance, fitness, martial arts, and community service.