Appointed 2022-23 GIST President
The Graduate Student association in the College of Information Science and Technology (GIST) President is a prominent leadership role for a Ph.D./Masters student within Penn State’s College of Information Science and Technology. The GIST serves as the official representative body for over 500 graduate students in the College, covering diverse programs.
As GIST President, I am responsible for executing a vision that addresses the needs and enhances the overall graduate student experience within the College. Key duties include facilitating regular GIST meetings, communicating student feedback to the College administration, managing a committee team focused on events/activities, overseeing a budget, and fostering an inclusive community. I also use this opportunities to spearhead new initiatives that enrich professional development and social connections for IST graduate students during their time at Penn State.
This is a 1-year appointed term that is highly regarded within the College of IST for demonstrating excellence in leadership, communication, organizational management, and representation of fellow graduate students’ interests. As such, the GIST President plays an integral role as the voice of the graduate student community.
I am a PhD candidate in Informatics in the College of IST at Penn State University, where I conduct research at the PIKE Research Lab under the guidance of Dr. Dongwon Lee. I specialize in AI/ML research focused on Information Integrity, Safe and Ethical AI, including combating harmful content across multiple languages and modalities. My research spans low-resource multilingual NLP, generative AI, and adversarial machine learning, with work extending across 79 languages. I have published 12 papers with 260+ citations in premier venues including ACL, EMNLP, IEEE, and NAACL.
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.