Rediet Abebe

Also known as ረድኤት አበበ

Rediet Abebe is a computer scientist who applies algorithms and AI to inequality and access to opportunity. Raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, she studied mathematics at Harvard and Cambridge, then earned a computer science Ph.D. at Cornell in 2019 under Jon Kleinberg. In 2016 she co-founded Mechanism Design for Social Good, and she also co-founded Black in AI. After a junior fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows, she joined UC Berkeley's EECS department as an assistant professor in 2021 and became an Andrew Carnegie Fellow in 2022. She is a professor at the University of Tübingen and the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, where she leads the AI & Mechanisms research group.

Now at: University of Tübingen, ELLIS Institute Tübingen and Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Born: 1991
Works: 54
Citations: 1,891
h-index: 14
Badges: Founder
Boomerang
Wayfarer

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

2009

Mathematics at Harvard and Cambridge

Raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, she arrives at Harvard in 2009 planning to study mathematics, and earns a BA in mathematics and an MS in applied mathematics. She then studies at the University of Cambridge as the Governor William Shirley Scholar at Pembroke College and earns a Master of Advanced Studies in pure mathematics under Imre Leader.
2015–2020

A Cornell Ph.D. with Kleinberg

She arrives at Cornell in 2015 to work with Jon Kleinberg and completes her computer science Ph.D. in 2019, the first Black woman to earn that doctorate at Cornell. Her dissertation, Designing Algorithms for Social Good, receives the 2020 ACM SIGKDD Dissertation Award and an honorable mention for the ACM SIGecom Dissertation Award.
2016

Co-founding MD4SG and Black in AI

In 2016, she co-founds Mechanism Design for Social Good with Kira Goldner, starting as an online reading group that applies theoretical computer science, economics and operations research to improving access to opportunity. She also co-founds Black in AI, a community of Black researchers working in artificial intelligence, with Timnit Gebru.
2019

A Harvard junior fellowship

She becomes a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows in 2019 and serves on the National Institutes of Health Working Group on AI. MIT Technology Review features her in its 2019 list of 35 Innovators Under 35.
2019–2020

Roles for Computing in Social Change

She coauthors Roles for Computing in Social Change with Solon Barocas, Jon Kleinberg, Karen Levy, Manish Raghavan and David G. Robinson, posted to arXiv in December 2019. The paper names four roles for computing research: diagnostic, formalizer, rebuttal and synecdoche. In 2020, she gives a keynote on the theme at the Simons Institute's workshop on Algorithm Design, Law, and Policy.
2021

Assistant professor at Berkeley

She joins UC Berkeley's EECS department from Harvard as an assistant professor in 2021, the first Black female professor in the department's history. She leads Berkeley's BEAAMO research group and, in 2021, co-launches the ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization as inaugural Program Co-Chair. She also works with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education on how high school seniors are matched to public universities.
2022

Andrew Carnegie Fellowship

She is named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow in 2022 for Algorithms on Trial: Interrogating Evidentiary Statistical Software, a project on the use of software tools as evidence in the U.S. criminal legal system. Her research in algorithms and artificial intelligence centers on inequality and distributive justice.
As of October 2026

Professor at Tübingen and ELLIS

She is a professor at the University of Tübingen and the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, where she leads the AI & Mechanisms research group. She is co-affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems.