Appointed 2023-24 PAN-African Professional Alliance IT Officer
The PAN-African Professional Alliances IT Officer serves on the Executive Board and plays a critical role in managing the organization’s information technology infrastructure. This includes overseeing PANAPA’s website, leading and organizing ICT services for major PANAPA events such as the annual conference, chapter meetings, recreational activities, cultural programs, and diversity events.
As IT Officer, I chair PANAPA’s Information Technology Committee which explores new technologies and digital platforms to enhance delivery of the organization’s mission. I provide leadership and strategic direction for leveraging technology to better serve PANAPA members and the broader community.
Key responsibilities include:
Direct maintenance and enhancement PANAPA’s website, keeping content updated and exploring new features to improve user experience
Leading planning and execution of ICT services for major PANAPA events including audio/visual equipment, wifi, video conferencing, etc.
Advising and educating the Executive Board on emerging technology trends relevant to the organization
Building collaborative relationships with IT professionals and firms that can provide technical support to PANAPA
Promoting innovative projects that use IT to increase PANAPA’s community impact
The IT Officer will lead a committee of IT professionals and liaise frequently with the Communications Committee and other key internal stakeholders. Strong technical knowledge, leadership ability, creativity and excellent communication skills are essential to success in this dynamic and influential Executive Board role.
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.