Engineering Science DPhil is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Fellow for MPLS Division

The University's MPLS Division have announced the 2022-2023 cohort of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) Fellows who will help advance ED&I work within the Division.

This is the third year of running the ED&I Fellowship scheme with representation from across the Maths, Physics and Life Sciences departments. These Fellows will work with the central MPLS ED&I Team, ED&I Steering Group and departmental leads to champion ED&I for the Division.

DPhil Student Gunshi Gupta is one of the new ED&I Fellows, representing the Department of Engineering Science. She grew up in New Delhi, India, and got an applied-math engineering degree from DTU. After 2 years in industry, she did a Masters at Oxford on the topics of Bayesian deep-learning, meta learning and continual learning. Before joining the Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems (AIMS CDT) as a DPhil student, she worked on the autonomous driving startup Wayve. Gunshi’s DPhil research revolves around the problem of probabilistic and causally-correct learning from data, with a focus on robotics tasks.

She says, “As an incoming ED&I fellow I’m excited to share experiences with the cohort, identify common goals and contribute on two fronts: Making STEM a place where BIPOC students and individuals with neuro-divergences can thrive. I hope to apply my experience being a gender and racial minority in different Robotics/CS labs to help inform policy-making for fostering inclusivity in these spaces, especially in a way that doesn’t try to always overlook people’s cultural backgrounds but instead celebrates and appreciates it.”

Professor Janet Pierrehumbert, Engineering Science Director of Equality and Diversity (2021-22), says, “On behalf of the Department, I’m very pleased to welcome Gunshi Gupta as our new MPLS ED&I Fellow. Gunshi has lived in four different countries and can connect with people from many different backgrounds. Her perspective on ED&I best practices has been developed through experiences both in academics and in the corporate sector, and she has already been active in several initiatives, including giving talks in affinity events and serving as a Latinx-in-AI mentor. She’ll be a great asset to the departmental ED&I efforts as we head into the new academic year.”