Rate My Professor AZRA ISMAIL

Azra Ismail serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Emory University School of Medicine since September 2023. She holds affiliated faculty positions in the Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, and the Department of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences. Ismail received her Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing with a minor in Global Development from the Georgia Institute of Technology in May 2023, and her B.S. in Computer Engineering with Highest Honors from Georgia Tech in December 2017. Previously, she worked as a Research Assistant in the Technology and Design for Empowerment at the Margins Lab at Georgia Tech from April 2016 to August 2023, and held research roles with Google Research, United Nations Global Pulse, Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Philips Research.

Her research specializations include bias, ethics, and fairness in AI; human-computer interaction; brain health; global, public, and rural health along with social determinants of health; and maternal-child health. Ismail directs the CARE Lab at Emory University, focusing on human-centered design and evaluation of AI-based systems in healthcare, culturally-situated care for taboo topics like reproductive health and mental health, and bridging AI research with practical implementation in diverse contexts through participatory design, UI/UX research, fieldwork, system development, and mixed-methods evaluation. She is the co-founder of MakerGhat Foundation since 2018. Notable awards include the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia for Social Impact, Best Paper Honorable Mentions at CSCW 2023 and CHI 2019, 2022 selection as one of 75 Women in STEAM by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, 2021 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics, and the 2020 GVU Foley Scholar at Georgia Tech. Key publications include "Public Health Calls with/for AI: An Ethnographic Perspective" (Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, CSCW 2023; Best Paper Honorable Mention), "AI in Global Health: The View from the Front Lines" (CHI 2021), "Imagining Caring Futures for Frontline Health Work" (CSCW 2022), and "Empowerment on the Margins: The Online Experiences of Frontline Health Workers" (CHI 2019; Best Paper Honorable Mention). Ismail has organized the Doctoral Consortium for COMPASS 2023–2024, co-chaired Diversity and Equity for CHIWORK 2021–2022, and delivered invited talks at Google, Misk Global Forum, and UCSD Computer Science and Engineering.