# @ucberkeleyofficial on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DT3uyMGEtsp
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/64635246-ucberkeleyofficial-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a1663102f5.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-01-23T22:58:13.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** UC Berkeley (@ucberkeleyofficial) — https://gondola.cc/ucberkeleyofficial

## Caption

UC Berkeley computer scientist Emma Pierson believes we can use AI to improve our healthcare and criminal justice systems — but only if we design these algorithms with an eye toward equality.

When Pierson was an undergraduate studying physics at Stanford University, she learned that her mother was a carrier of the BRCA1 gene mutation. Pierson had a 50% chance of also having the mutation, which confers a high risk of breast and ovarian cancers. Genetic testing later confirmed that Pierson was also a carrier.

Now, Pierson is developing AI and machine learning methods for medicine and the social sciences, with the goal of improving health care and reducing social inequality.

“I am trying to use AI to make a healthier and fairer world,” Pierson said.

Recently, she developed a new test for detecting racial discrimination in policing. She is also working to reduce racial and gender bias in algorithms, particularly those that are used to assess disease risk and make critical decisions about patient care.

“If an algorithm is unfair, it can also reproduce unfairness on a much vaster scale than any single human decision maker,” Pierson said. “My experience [with the BRCA1 mutation] has really crystallized for me that these risk tools are not just abstractions or interesting objects of study, but things that … are vitally important to get right.”

🔗Read the full story at the link in our bio: https://bit.ly/4jXk2ZH 

#UCBerkeley #ResearchWithResults

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researchwithresults, ucberkeley

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