PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Adji Bousso Dieng

Adji Bousso Dieng is a Senegalese computer scientist who applies machine learning to scientific discovery. She studied engineering in France and applied statistics at Cornell, then earned a statistics Ph.D. at Columbia in 2020. Her research includes the Embedded Topic Model, which combines word embeddings with topic modeling, and the Vendi Score, a metric for measuring diversity in machine-learning data and generated outputs. By 2021, she had founded The Africa I Know; in 2026, she joined the United Nations' Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and won an NSF CAREER Award. As of October 2026, she is an assistant professor at Princeton and leads Vertaix on AI and the natural sciences.

Works
52
Citations
1,971
h-index
17
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. May 2020

    A statistics doctorate

    A native of Senegal, she earns a statistics Ph.D. at Columbia in May 2020 after studying engineering at Télécom Paris and applied statistics at Cornell.

  2. 2020

    The Embedded Topic Model

    With Francisco J. R. Ruiz and David M. Blei, she publishes the Embedded Topic Model in 2020. It combines traditional topic modeling with word embeddings and learns interpretable topics from large vocabularies.

  3. 2020–2025

    Google DeepMind and Princeton

    She starts as a research scientist at Google DeepMind in 2020 and holds the role through 2025. She joins Princeton's computer science faculty in 2021.

  4. By 2021

    The Africa I Know

    By 2021, she is the founder of The Africa I Know, a nonprofit that aims to change narratives about African history, knowledge and innovation and to support young Africans' STEM careers.

  5. 2023

    The Vendi Score

    In 2023, she and Dan Friedman publish the Vendi Score, a machine-learning metric for measuring diversity in datasets and generative models.

  6. 2026

    A U.N. panel and NSF award

    In February 2026, the U.N. General Assembly confirms her appointment to the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. She wins an NSF CAREER Award in 2026 for research on a new AI paradigm for scientific discovery.

  7. As of October 2026

    Leading Vertaix at Princeton

    She is an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton and leads Vertaix, a lab that researches the intersection of AI and the natural sciences.

A language model matched the links in this timeline to people, organizations and papers (provisional, model-judged).

Career

  1. Since 2021Princeton UniversityAssistant Professor of Computer Science
  2. From 2026United NationsMember
  3. 2020–2025Google DeepMindResearch Scientist
  4. The Africa I KnowFounder

Education

  1. 2020Columbia UniversityPhD
  2. Télécom Paris
  3. Cornell University

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Topic Modeling in Embedding Spaces2020 · Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics · 796 citationsWith David M. Blei
  2. Edward: A library for probabilistic modeling, inference, and criticism2016 · 200 citationsWith David M. Blei
  3. TopicRNN: A Recurrent Neural Network with Long-Range Semantic Dependency2016 · 182 citationsWith Jianfeng Gao
  4. Avoiding Latent Variable Collapse With Generative Skip Models2018 · 125 citationsWith Alexander Rush and David M. Blei
  5. Readmission prediction via deep contextual embedding of clinical concepts2018 · PLoS ONE · 118 citationsWith David M. Blei

From OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

  1. The median h-index is 55 at universities and 20 at frontier AI labsIncludes Adji Bousso Dieng. The median h-index is 55 at universities and 20 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, citations and moves to estimate how universities and frontier labs contribute to AI research.
  2. 13% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Adji Bousso Dieng. Our estimates of how university-to-company career transitions changed by decade, including roles added alongside an earlier job.
  3. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 113 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Princeton University. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 113 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Princeton University. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Adji Bousso Dieng on AI, breaking barriers, and computing as empowerment engineering.princeton.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. Topic Modeling in Embedding Spaces transacl.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Adji Bousso Dieng and Aleksandra Korolova named to U.N. scientific panel on artificial intelligence cs.princeton.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. The Vendi Score: A Diversity Evaluation Metric for Machine Learning mlanthology.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. Dieng wins NSF CAREER award for research on a new AI paradigm for scientific discovery cs.princeton.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  6. Adji Bousso Dieng cs.princeton.edu. Checked 18 October 2026.