PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Alexandra Olteanu

Alexandra Olteanu is a responsible AI researcher whose work examines social-data quality, rigorous AI evaluation, and human agency in anthropomorphic systems. Her career includes CrisisLex's crisis-message lexicon in 2014, an EPFL doctoral thesis in 2016, an IBM Social Good Fellowship in 2017, and a framework for social-data bias in 2019. She co-chaired the inaugural fairness and ethics track at The Web Conference in 2023, served as program co-chair for ACM FAccT in 2024, and coauthored a framework for AI systems designed to imitate humans in 2025. As of October 2026, she is an independent researcher and associate industry member at Mila, after co-founding, rebuilding, and leading Microsoft Research Montréal's FATE team.

Now at
Mila
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Links
Website, Google Scholar, X, LinkedIn and GitHub

Timeline

  1. 2014

    CrisisLex and crisis messages

    In 2014, she coauthors CrisisLex with Carlos Castillo, Fernando Diaz, and Sarah Vieweg. The paper creates a lexicon of crisis terms, identifies new terms for specific crises, and helps extract crisis messages from Twitter.

  2. 2016

    A thesis on social data

    In January 2016, she defends her EPFL thesis, “Probing the Limits of Social Data: Biases, Methods, and Domain Knowledge,” in the Computer and Communication Sciences doctoral program, with Prof. K. Aberer as thesis director.

  3. 2017

    IBM Social Good Fellowship

    In February 2017, she joins IBM as a Social Good Fellow at the T.J. Watson Research Center.

  4. 2019

    A framework for social-data bias

    In 2019, she coauthors “Social Data: Biases, Methodological Pitfalls, and Ethical Boundaries.” The review identifies biases and inaccuracies in social data and organizes methodological pitfalls and ethical boundaries in a framework.

  5. 2023

    Co-chairing a Web ethics track

    At The Web Conference in 2023, she serves as the inaugural co-chair of its Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics on the Web track.

  6. 2024

    Program co-chair at ACM FAccT

    At the 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), she serves as a program co-chair.

  7. March 2025

    A framework for AI automatons

    In March 2025, she serves as a principal researcher on Microsoft Research Montréal's Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics (FATE) team and coauthors “AI Automatons.” The paper synthesizes examples of AI systems intended to mimic humans and proposes a framework for their design choices and ethical implications.

  8. As of October 2026

    Independent research at Mila

    As of October 2026, she is a responsible AI researcher, an independent researcher, and an associate industry member at Mila. At Microsoft Research Montréal, she leads the FATE team as a principal researcher, after co-founding and later rebuilding the group. Her work focuses on rigor in AI, measurement and evaluation, and human agency in anthropomorphic AI systems.

Career

  1. NowMilaIndependent Researcher and Associate Industry Member
  2. Until 2026Microsoft ResearchPrincipal Researcher, Co-founder and team lead
  3. From 2017IBM ResearchSocial Good Fellow

Education

  1. 2016EPFLPhD

From the biography.

  1. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes Alexandra Olteanu. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.
  2. Universities (31%) and startups and other companies (25%) employ the largest shares of 2020–2026 entrantsIncludes Mila. Among 819 people whose first recorded role started in 2020–2026 and who have a known current organization, 60% work in commercial sectors (25% at startups and other companies, 23% at frontier labs and 13% at big tech, with 9 in two), and 31% work at universities, compared with 66% for earlier entrants.
  3. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Mila. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Mila. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Alexandra Olteanu yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. CrisisLex: A Lexicon for Collecting and Filtering Microblogged Communications in Crises | Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media ojs.aaai.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Probing the Limits of Social Data: Biases, Methods, and Domain Knowledge - EPFL memento.epfl.ch. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Alexandra Olteanu aolteanu.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Alexandra Olteanu | Shaping Europe’s digital future digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Social Data: Biases, Methodological Pitfalls, and Ethical Boundaries | Frontiers in Big Data frontiersin.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. ACM FAccT - 2024 Committees facctconference.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. AI Automatons: AI Systems Intended to Imitate Humans - Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.