Study by U of T alumna sheds light on gender gap in AI field

A study led by University of Toronto alumna Kimberly Ren is among the first to quantify predictors that could lead women towards, or away from, pursuing careers in machine learning and artificial intelligence, or AI. Women currently make up 22 per cent of global AI professionals, with that proportion oscillating between 21 per cent and 23 per cent over a four-year trend, according to a 2018 report by the World Economic Forum. "The talent gap isn't closing," says Ren, who recently graduated from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and was awarded the Best Paper Award at the American Society for Engineering Education Conference for her fourth-year thesis project. She led the study under the supervision of Alison Olechowski, an assistant professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering. "What I hope this research does is find some reasoning behind this gap, so that we can increase the persistence of women in the field going forward."