Career Paths (Senior Manager, Cognitive Architectures): Profiles Of Women In Tech #GHC18

Alexandra Coman

Senior Manager, Cognitive Architectures Capital One Tech

Describe your current role. I conduct research in various subfields of AI, including cognitive systems, narrative intelligence, affective computing, automated planning, and goal reasoning. Among others, I publish conference and journal papers, apply for patents, and serve on AI conference committees.

What is it you really do? I identify AI research problems and work on solving them. Such problems range from philosophical questions like “What would it mean for an AI agent to be insincere and should that ever be allowed?” to practical applications of AI in the banking domain. For example, at the International Conference on Computational Creativity this year, we published a paper in which we explore the need for AI customer service assistants that are creative, thoughtful, and pleasantly surprising.

Where did your career start? With my Ph.D. research in Artificial Intelligence.

How did you end up doing what you’re doing today? By looking into research directions that can lead to AI agents with qualities I appreciate in humans, such as sincerity, thoughtfulness, and resilience.

Technology (app, tool, device, hack) you can’t live without. None, hopefully!

Best career advice you’ve been given. Never feel inescapably boxed in. If something isn’t working out as well as you’d expect it to, or as well as it used to, look into alternatives, and consider moving on.

If you’re headed to #GHC18 — Alexandra is speaking on “Can Artificially Intelligent Agents Be (In)Sincere” at 1:15 pm CT on Friday, September 28 in GRB General Assembly A.

AND meet the Capital One team —

and I personally look forward to meeting you on Thursday, September 27 in the Career Fair expo at the Capital One Booth at 1:15 pm #CapitalOnePartner