PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Flavio P. Calmon

Also known as Flavio du Pin Calmon, Flávio P. Calmon

Flavio du Pin Calmon is a Harvard electrical engineering professor whose information-theoretic research studies fairness, privacy, and trustworthy machine learning. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. Before joining Harvard, he was the inaugural Data Science for Social Good postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, New York. He joined Harvard SEAS in 2017. In 2026, Harvard awarded him the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising; as of October 2026, he is an associate professor of electrical engineering at Harvard and leads its Information Theory Laboratory.

Works
181
Citations
2,826
h-index
28

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2017

    Harvard appointment

    He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. Before joining Harvard, he serves as the inaugural Data Science for Social Good postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, New York. He joins Harvard SEAS in 2017.

  2. 2018

    Principal inertia components for fairness

    In September 2018, he presents principal inertia components (PICs) as information-theoretic tools to study fairness, discrimination, and privacy in machine-learning models. His research develops information-theoretic tools for trustworthy and reliable machine learning.

  3. 2019

    NSF CAREER and Amazon awards

    In 2019, he receives the NSF CAREER award and an Amazon Research Award for “Building the Foundations of Fair Machine Learning: From Information Theory to Federated Algorithms.”

  4. 2020

    Predictive multiplicity in classification

    In 2020, he coauthors Predictive Multiplicity in Classification, which defines how a prediction problem can admit competing models that assign conflicting predictions. The paper introduces severity measures and integer-programming tools for linear classifiers.

  5. 2022

    Fairness in multi-class prediction

    In 2022, he coauthors Beyond Adult and COMPAS: Fairness in Multi-Class Prediction, which projects a pretrained classifier onto models that meet target group-fairness requirements. Its iterative algorithm comes with sample-complexity and convergence guarantees.

  6. 2024

    James L. Massey Award

    In 2024, he receives the James L. Massey Research & Teaching Award for Young Scholars from the IEEE Information Theory Society.

  7. January 2025

    Thomas D. Cabot professorship

    In January 2025, Harvard names him the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.

  8. 2025

    AI Alignment at Your Discretion

    In 2025, he coauthors AI Alignment at Your Discretion, which develops metrics to analyze how human and algorithmic annotators exercise discretion in AI alignment. In April 2025, the paper wins NENLP’s Best Paper Award.

  9. As of October 2026

    Mentoring award and lab leadership

    In May 2026, Harvard awards him the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising. As of October 2026, he is the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Harvard SEAS and leads the Harvard Information Theory Laboratory as its principal investigator.

Career

  1. Since 2025Harvard UniversityThomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering
  2. NowHarvard UniversityPrincipal Investigator, Harvard Information Theory Laboratory
  3. From 2017Harvard University
  4. IBM ResearchPostdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

From the biography.

Checked career sources: lidsconf.mit.edu, people.seas.harvard.edu, infotheorylab.github.io.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. LIDS Student Conference 2025 – Plenary Talks lidsconf.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Calmon honored for research and teaching seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Representations, fairness, and privacy: information-theoretic tools for machine learning web.stanford.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. 2019 Amazon Research Awards recipients announcement amazon.science. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Predictive Multiplicity in Classification proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Beyond Adult and COMPAS: Fairness in Multi-Class Prediction arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Flavio Calmon - Harvard people.seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. AI Alignment at Your Discretion arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Flavio Calmon receives Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  10. Flavio P. Calmon | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  11. Contact - The Information Theory Laboratory infotheorylab.github.io. Checked 27 October 2026.