Laura State, PhD

Laura State is a Postdoctoral researcher in the Impact AI project. Through the development of a transdisciplinary auditing methodology, the project aims to evaluate the contribution of artificial intelligence (AI) systems towards societal transformation and ecological sustainability. 

Her research focuses on understanding the implications of AI on society and the planet, and on developing methods to assess these implications. The overall aim is to better understand how AI can be used to build a more sustainable future. Her research has a strong interdisciplinary character, drawing on her education in the hard sciences and experience both in academia and industry. 

Laura’s PhD thesis focuses on transparency and accountability issues of AI, specifically non-interpretable machine learning models. Key contributions include interdisciplinary work on explanations and EU regulation, as well as the development of the explanation tool REASONX. 

She obtained her PhD in Data Science from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy and was advised by Salvatore Ruggieri and Franco Turini. Next to her role as a PhD student, she was also an Early Stage Researcher in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN NoBIAS, based at the University of Pisa. 

Laura State holds a MSc in Neural Information processing from the University of Tübingen, and a BSc in Physics from the University of Rostock.