PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Timnit Gebru

Timnit Gebru is DAIR's founder and an active researcher whose work examines who builds AI and who bears its costs. Her career includes hardware and signal-processing work at Apple, followed by a Stanford doctorate in computer vision. She cofounded Black in AI with Rediet Abebe. With Joy Buolamwini, she published Gender Shades, which found uneven error rates in three commercial gender-classification systems. She also coauthored Datasheets for Datasets and Stochastic Parrots. Her 2020 Google departure remains disputed: she describes being fired, while Google's published account described accepting a resignation. She founded DAIR in 2021. Right Livelihood named her a 2026 laureate. The ceremony is scheduled for December.

Now at
DAIR Institute
Works
38
Citations
15,924
h-index
22

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Timnit Gebru

Timeline

  1. Apple and Stanford

    Hardware, then images

    She works on hardware at Apple and completes a Stanford doctorate in computer vision.

  2. 2016–2017

    Making space for more researchers

    She and Rediet Abebe cofound Black in AI.

  3. 2018

    A face-analysis test finds a gap

    With Joy Buolamwini, she tests three commercial gender-classification systems and reports group differences in errors.

  4. December 2021

    Starting an independent institute

    She founds DAIR, an independent institute working with communities affected by AI.

  5. September–October 2026

    The work receives a current award

    Right Livelihood names her a 2026 laureate for her ongoing work.

Sources and credits

Photo: TechCrunch, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 2.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Right Livelihood: current Gebru laureate biography rightlivelihood.org. Checked 10 October 2026.
  2. Right Livelihood: Gebru award announcement, 30 September 2026 rightlivelihood.org. Checked 10 October 2026.
  3. Gebru: historical Stanford personal page ai.stanford.edu. Checked 10 October 2026.
  4. Black in AI: organization history blackinai.org. Checked 10 October 2026.
  5. Buolamwini and Gebru: Gender Shades, 2018 proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 10 October 2026.
  6. Gebru and colleagues: Datasheets for Datasets arxiv.org. Checked 10 October 2026.
  7. UW: Stochastic Parrots research announcement, 10 March 2021 washington.edu. Checked 10 October 2026.
  8. Gebru and Dean: emails reproduced by Platformer, December 2020 platformer.news. Checked 10 October 2026.