AI and the Self NeurIPS 2026 Workshop
Organizers

Workshop organizers

Jacki O'Neill

Jacki O'Neill

Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi

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Jacki O'Neill is the Director and founding Lab Director of Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi (formerly MARI). She applies ethnographic and HCI methods to build culturally grounded, human-centered AI and translate fieldwork into systems across work, health, and agriculture. She received the ACM SIGCHI Societal Impact Award (2026) and has served on organizing/program committees for CHI, CSCW, ICTD, and ECSCW, including co-organizing the Nairobi workshop behind the AI and the Future of Work in Africa white paper.

Haneesha Pinnamaraju

Dr. Haneesha Pinnamaraju

SHINE Child Development Center, Dubai

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Haneesha Pinnamaraju is the Medical Director at SHINE Child Development Center, Dubai, and a Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrician. Through her work and expertise on neurodiversity and inclusive education, she contributes developmental perspectives to discussions on the design, use, and societal impact of AI, with a focus on ensuring that AI technologies support inclusion, human flourishing, and the diverse developmental needs of children and adolescents.

Sandrine R. Schiller

Sandrine R. Schiller

University of Copenhagen

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Sandrine R. Schiller is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Philosophy of AI at the University of Copenhagen. Her research explores the implications of intimate relationships with AI chatbots and how generative AI transforms the conditions of selfhood and intersubjective relations. Her research also extends to philosophical questions in mechanistic interpretability and the risks of engagement optimization. Her research has been published by AAAI/ACM and NAACL, as well as more traditional venues for philosophy.

Akhil Arora

Akhil Arora

Aarhus University

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Akhil Arora is a professor of computer science at Aarhus University, where he leads the CLAN for AI Research on Language and Networks (or “CLAN” for short). He is a fellow of Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science, an affiliate of ELLIS Unit Copenhagen and Pioneer Centre for AI, and a formal collaborator of the Wikimedia Foundation. Akhil’s research lies broadly in human-centered and trustworthy AI, with a focus on structured and multi-agent reasoning, multilinguality, culturally grounded language technologies, and systems for reliable and cost-efficient LLM inference. His work has been published in top-tier AI venues including ICML, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, and WWW. He has co-organized multiple workshops collocated with top venues including ACL, EMNLP, and SIGMOD. Akhil is a director of the P1-programs on Green AI and AI & Society.

Monojit Choudhury

Monojit Choudhury

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)

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Monojit Choudhury is a Professor of Natural Language Processing, and the Chief Scientist of the Institute of Agriculture and AI at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), Abu Dhabi. Prior to this, he was a Principal Scientist at Microsoft Research Lab and Microsoft Turing, India. His research interests lie in the intersection of NLP, Social and Cultural aspects of Technology use, and Ethics. He is a member of the ACL Ethics Committee. Monojit has organized numerous workshops at *ACL conferences, including the TextGraphs series and Computational Processing of Code-mixing series.

Mukund Choudhary

Mukund Choudhary

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)

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Mukund Choudhary is a PhD candidate at MBZUAI researching how LLMs structure language or “LLM linguistics”, currently focused on ways to compare LLM and human linguistic and language-learning behaviour and distinguishing it from internal mechanisms. Apart from regularly reviewing and volunteering at *ACL conferences, he has also headed the organization, coordination, and outreach for the Panini Linguistics Olympiad for high-school students in India.

Abdoul Jalil Djiberou Mahamadou

Abdoul Jalil Djiberou Mahamadou

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)

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Abdoul Jalil Djiberou Mahamadou is a Postdoctoral Associate at MBZUAI working on personalization, cultural sensitivity, and inclusion in AI. He has previously worked on the ethics of AI in healthcare, algorithmic bias and fairness, participatory AI, AI and neuroscience, causal inference, and uncertainty modelling. He is an organizing comittee member of the incoming AACL and EMNLP tutorial on ethics in NLP.