Nandhini Swaminathan

About

I am a Ph.D. student in the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute at UC San Diego, advised by Prof. David Danks and Prof. Emily Aiken. I am broadly interested in the design, development, and governance of AI systems, drawing insights from machine learning, game theory, reinforcement learning, and technology policy to advance the ethical and responsible deployment of artificial intelligence. My research seeks to address the sociotechnical challenges that arise as AI systems become increasingly integrated into high-stakes human and organizational contexts. My current work focuses on AI governance, fairness, bias mitigation, and AI safety. In particular, I investigate how ethical risks emerge in distributed AI development, how AI systems should navigate pluralistic human values, and how mechanisms for accountability, transparency, and oversight can be embedded into machine learning systems. By combining technical approaches with insights from social and behavioral sciences, I aim to develop adaptive and trustworthy AI systems that operate effectively in dynamic environments while promoting fairness, responsible decision-making, and human well-being. GitHub LinkedIn Medium

Selected Publications

• Challenges to grassroots organization engagement with AI policy
  Buckner, C., Mickel, J., Swaminathan, N., Agnew, W., Hobbs, J., Arora, S., Lin, M., & Long, Y.
  ACM FAccT 2026.
• Evaluating Language Model Pluralism through In-the-wild Crowd Discussions
  Gagan Mundada, Rohan Surana, Nandhini Swaminathan, Bodhisattwa Prasad Majumder, Junda Wu, Julian McAuley, Zhouhang Xie.
  ACL 2026.
• Gricean Maxims in LLM Development
  N. Swaminathan, D. Danks.
  WiML Workshop, NeurIPS 2025.
• Governing ethical gaps in distributed AI development
  Nandhini Swaminathan, David Danks.
  Digital Society, 3(1), 7. 2024.
• AI, pluralism, and (social) compensation
  Nandhini Swaminathan, David Danks.
  Pluralistic Alignment Workshop at NeurIPS.
• Application of the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to surveillance technology
  Nandhini Swaminathan, David Danks.
  arXiv preprint. 2024.
• Identifying and Mitigating Bias in Quantum Machine Learning
  Nandhini Swaminathan, David Danks.
  IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE).
• Transfer: Deep inductive network for facial emotion recognition
  Arpita Gupta, Nandhini Swaminathan, Ramadakrishnan Balakrishnan.
  Journal of Mechanics of Continua and Mathematical Sciences, 15(7), 352.

Honors & Recognition

• CNTR and Watson Tech & Policy Summer School
  Brown University — 2026
  Selective two-week program on AI policy research and government engagement, hosted by Brown's Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination and Redesign (CNTR) and Watson School of International and Public Affairs.
• WiML Scholarship
  Women in Machine Learning — 2025
  Competitive travel scholarship to attend the Women in Machine Learning Workshop at NeurIPS.
• LWT Summit Scholarship
  Lesbians Who Tech — 2024
  Competitive scholarship to attend the flagship summit, recognizing contributions to the tech community.
• Runner-up, Infinity Hackathon
  Cognizant — May 2022
  Second place in the annual competition, demonstrating technical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Delegate, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR)
  Harvard University — January 2021
  Selected among 300 international students and professionals at a conference on foreign policy, technology, and science in the Asia region.
• MLH Fellow
  Meta / Major League Hacking — June–August 2021
  Competitive fellowship for open source software development, selected from a global applicant pool to contribute to Meta-supported open source projects.

Leadership & Service

• ACM US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC)
  Executive Committee Member, 2023–present
  Contributes to technology policy discussions and initiatives within the ACM.
• Chancellor's Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, UC San Diego
  Committee Member, 2023–2025
  Advises the Chancellor on gender equity and the status of women at UC San Diego.
• DEI Committee, UCSD CSE
  Committee Member, 2023–2024
  Contributed to DEI initiatives in Computer Science and Engineering; represented the department at external conferences and supported underrepresented groups in computing.

Writing

• "Neuro-Symbolic" AI — Where deep learning meets traditional rule-based coding. Mar 2022
• How Gravity Could Unravel the Mysteries of the Fifth Dimension — And how the Large Hadron Collider is helping solve it. Jan 2024
• Book Review: The Big Nine by Amy Webb — Bridging fiction, mystery, and technology. Sep 2023
• Image Refinement Essentials — Bayesian techniques, Markov random fields, and Gibbs sampling. Jul 2023
• Meta Quest 3 vs. Vision Pro — A comprehensive comparison of VR headsets. Jun 2023
• Build a Docker Container for Your Python Application in 5 Minutes — Containerization using Docker and an intro to Kubernetes. Jun 2023

Contact

I'm always open to discussing research, collaboration, or new opportunities. The best way to reach me is by email.