Dr. Fay Cobb Payton is the Chief Programs Officer at the Kapor Center where she leads its tech ecosystem building strategy. She was a National Science Foundation Program Director where she initiated the CISE Minority Serving Institution Research Expansion Program and worked on several initiatives, such as INCLUDES, Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science; AI Fairness, Equity, Accountability & Transparency Dear Colleague Letter and others. She received the NSF Director’s Award in 2020. Now Professor Emerita, she was a Full Professor (with Tenure) of Information Technology/Analytics. She is a graduate of Georgia Tech, Clark Atlanta University and Case Western Reserve University. She serves on the National Academics of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Committee on Advancing Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM Organizations. She led the NSF funding and support for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Women of Color in Tech Consensus Report. Her research explores AI bias and data quality/curation which impacts health equity and disparities, talent management/employment, and tech ecosystems impacts. She worked in the tech industry as a consultant and systems engineer . She is the author of Leveraging Intersectionality: Seeing and Not Seeing.
