Bio
Malak Sadek is a doctoral student at the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London. Prior, she obtained her MSc in Human-Computer Interaction with Distinction from The University of St Andrews in Scotland, and her BSc in Computer Engineering with Highest Honors from The American University in Cairo in Egypt.
Given her background in technical, socio-technical, and design-based aspects of technology, her work focuses on bridging the gap between these perspectives in order to envision more holistic outcomes. Her PhD project focuses on designing artificial intelligence-based systems collaboratively with diverse and interdisciplinary stakeholders to ensure that they better align with the values of the communities they serve. Her focus is especially on conversational artificial intelligence.
Research interests
Conversational technologies such as smart speakers have been described by experts as "trojan horses for artificial intelligence (AI)" infiltrating people's homes. As the use of these technologies by diverse populations rapidly grows, there are concerns about the socio-technical implications and the impact of these technologies. As a result, Malak's work focuses on how collaborative design can be leveraged to make the AI system design process more inclusive, participatory, and sensitive to human values. Her work focuses on addressing existing socio-technical barriers preventing the creation of human-centred and value-sensitive conversational AI.
Throughout her time at the Alan Turing Institute, Malak aims to learn more about responsible and ethical AI from technical, design-based, and policy-based perspectives, and to collaborate on meaningful and impactful research projects in this space.