AI Expert Dr Mahsa Mohaghegh Lectures in US

St. Bonaventure University’s cyber security programme recently hosted artificial intelligence expert and STEM advocate, New Zealander Dr Mahsa Mohaghegh as its Lenna Visiting Professor.

Mohaghegh is a professor at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) with a background in artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing. She visited St. Bonaventure and Jamestown Community College in New York earlier this month for lectures and classroom discussions.

She gave a public lecture on the St. Bonaventure campus titled, “The Future of Work: Human and AI Roles in the Future Workplace”.

“Mahsa is an internationally recognised young leader who has made significant achievements in the area of women in technology leading to her nomination as a Woman of Influence and recently as New Zealander of the Year,” Dr Hossein Sarrafzadeh, director of St. Bonaventure’s cyber security programme, said.

Because an early introduction to computers turned out to be career defining for Mohaghegh, she is trying to give more girls the same opportunity through her tech networking platform, She# (shesharp.co.nz). The women’s technology group is aimed at promoting STEM to the next generation and creating networking opportunities for students and industry professionals in the digital sector.

Since 2013, Mohaghegh has been involved with Google’s Computer Science for High Schools initiative, and she has run workshops for teachers across New Zealand for the past five years. Under her guidance, Unitec has run a mobile app development competition for girls with the winners being awarded scholarships to study computer science.

Original article by Olean Times Herald, September 2, 2018.