Aanya Khanna

Aanya Khanna is the Director of Communications at the Center for Gender Equitable AI (CGEAI), where she leads social media strategy and visual storytelling to raise awareness of AI-driven online harassment and inequity. She is currently working to expand outreach to K-12 and elderly populations and is leading efforts to launch a campaign encouraging more young women to pursue AI engineering.

Aanya's commitment to equity in AI is grounded in hands-on research. As a research assistant under Professor Neill at NYU Tandon, she used Python, PANDAS, and machine learning to analyze large pre-trial datasets and contributed to the development of Bias Scan, a novel framework for optimizing predictive fairness in algorithmic decision-making tools like the Public Safety Assessment. She presented her findings at the 5th ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization. She also identified racial and gender disparities in standard bail-risk assessment algorithms, presenting her research to over 400 attendees at the American Museum of Natural History.

Aanya is a computer science student at Penn State, where she also leads a team in the IBM AI Experiential Learning Lab, building agentic AI solutions using IBM WatsonX. She previously served as a paid Youth Social Media Manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she launched the MET's TikTok account and developed a content strategy for its Instagram.