PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Emma Pierson

Emma Pierson is an assistant professor of computer science and the Zhang Family Endowed Professor at UC Berkeley, where she develops machine learning methods for health and social science. She earned degrees in physics, computer science and statistics before completing a Stanford computer science PhD in 2020. Her research included a 2020 analysis of racial bias in police stops and a 2021 study that used machine learning to identify knee damage missed by standard assessments. In 2025, she coauthored HypotheSAEs, which uses sparse autoencoders and a large language model to generate hypotheses about patterns in text. She also works part-time as a senior research fellow at Transluce, a nonprofit that provides oversight of AI.

Works
118
Citations
7,972
h-index
26
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 28 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2013

    Physics and computer science degrees

    Originally from Arlington, Virginia, she earns a bachelor’s degree in physics and a co-terminal master’s degree in computer science at Stanford in 2013. Her studies include computer methods for biological problems, particularly cancer treatments.

  2. By 2020

    Statistics and a Stanford doctorate

    By 2020, she holds a master’s degree in statistics from Oxford. She works in Jure Leskovec’s lab at Stanford and completes a PhD in computer science in 2020.

  3. 2020

    Racial bias in traffic stops

    In 2020, Pierson and her colleagues in the Stanford Open Policing Project report results from nearly 100 million traffic stops across the United States. Their analysis finds evidence of bias against Black and Hispanic drivers in both stops and searches.

  4. 2020

    Microsoft Research and COVID-19

    In 2020, she works as a senior researcher at Microsoft Research New England. She presents a COVID-19 model that combines mobile-phone movement data with disease transmission, using data from 98 million people in ten large US metropolitan areas to study infection risks and reopening policies.

  5. 2021

    Measuring inequality in knee pain

    In 2021, she coauthors a study that uses machine learning to find knee damage missed by standard X-ray severity scores. Training on patients’ reported pain helps the algorithm identify features that disproportionately affect Black patients.

  6. 2021

    Assistant professor at Cornell Tech

    She joins the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion as an assistant professor of computer science in 2021. She also holds a secondary joint appointment as an assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine.

  7. 2024

    Tisch professor and AI2050 fellow

    In 2024, she receives a Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Early Career Fellowship for work that seeks to use AI to promote equity. Cornell Tech also names her its inaugural Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Assistant Professor in 2024.

  8. 2025

    HypotheSAEs for hypothesis generation

    She coauthors Sparse Autoencoders for Hypothesis Generation at the International Conference on Machine Learning in 2025. The method, HypotheSAEs, uses a sparse autoencoder to extract features from text embeddings, selects features that predict an outcome and uses a large language model to describe them as hypotheses.

  9. By August 2026

    Research fellow at Transluce

    By August 2026, she works part-time as a senior research fellow at Transluce, a nonprofit that provides oversight of AI.

  10. As of October 2026

    Professor at UC Berkeley

    In 2025, she joins UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and is named the Zhang Family Endowed Professor. As of October 2026, she is an assistant professor of computer science, core faculty in Computational Precision Health and affiliated with the Berkeley AI Research Lab and the Center for Human-Compatible AI. Her work develops machine learning methods for health and social science, with a focus on reducing inequality and improving healthcare.

Career

  1. Since 2025University of California, BerkeleyZhang Family Endowed Professor
  2. NowTransluceSenior research fellow
  3. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyAssistant professor of computer science
  4. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyCore faculty in Computational Precision Health
  5. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyAffiliated with the Berkeley AI Research Lab
  6. NowUniversity of California, BerkeleyAffiliate
  7. From 2025University of California, Berkeley
  8. 2025–2026University of California, San Francisco
  9. From 2024Cornell UniversityAndrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Assistant Professor
  10. From 2021Cornell UniversityAssistant professor of computer science
  11. From 2021TechnionAssistant professor of computer science
  12. From 2021Cornell UniversityAssistant professor of population health sciences
  13. Microsoft ResearchSenior researcher

Education

  1. 2020Stanford UniversityPhD in computer science
  2. 2013Stanford UniversityBachelor's degree in physics
  3. 2013Stanford UniversityMaster's degree in computer science
  4. University of OxfordMaster's degree in statistics
  5. Stanford UniversityPhD student in Jure Leskovec’s lab

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

Checked career sources: events.cornell.edu, dli.tech.cornell.edu, people.eecs.berkeley.edu.

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 Emma Pierson yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Passion and academic acumen lead Pierson to Rhodes stanforddaily.com. Checked 28 October 2026.
  2. Seminar @ Cornell Tech: Emma Pierson - Cornell events.cornell.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  3. Emma Pierson | EECS at UC Berkeley www2.eecs.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  4. Barr says there’s no systemic racism in policing. Our data says the attorney general is wrong. goodauthority.org. Checked 28 October 2026.
  5. DL Seminar | Modeling COVID with Mobility Data to Understand Inequality and Guide Reopening dli.tech.cornell.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  6. Using Data Science to Highlight Societal Inequities - Hertz Foundation hertzfoundation.org. Checked 28 October 2026.
  7. Cornell Bowers CIS welcomes 13 faculty members | Cornell Chronicle news.cornell.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  8. Cornell Tech’s Pierson named Schmidt AI2050 fellow – Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society datasciencecenter.cornell.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  9. Emma Pierson people.eecs.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  10. Sparse Autoencoders for Hypothesis Generation proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 28 October 2026.
  11. Emma Pierson named Zhang Family Endowed Professor at UC Berkeley EECS | CDSS at UC Berkeley cdss.berkeley.edu. Checked 28 October 2026.
  12. Emma Pierson - Hertz Foundation hertzfoundation.org. Checked 28 October 2026.