Associate Professor Sera Linardi will be leading an organization focused on using interdisciplinary research to improve equity and access to opportunity in historically under-served communities.
Dr. Linardi has been named the first Executive Director of EAAMO: Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization. This new nonprofit organization will oversee the existing annual conference of the same name, while also encompassing the research community behind that conference, now named EAAMO Bridges. Formerly known as Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG), EAAMO Bridges includes nearly 2000 participants from 130 institutions across 50 countries and harnesses insights from computer science, social sciences, and humanistic studies to improve access to opportunity for marginalized communities.
The change, and the creation of the new organization set to take its place overseeing the conference and community divisions, was announced by Linardi during a presentation at this year’s EAAMO conference in Boston. In its third year, the conference provides an international forum for presenting research and position papers, problem pitches, and software demonstrations towards the goal of bridging research and practice.
“I’m so honored to be the 1st Executive Director of EAAMO,” Linardi shared in her response to the organization’s announcement on X. “My life goal: help math/computing ppl support the efforts of underserved communities. @MD4SG in 2018 gave me hope & friends.”
At Pitt, Dr. Linardi is also the founding director of the Center for Analytical Approaches for Social Innovation (CAASI), a research center founded in 2019 to integrate student’s desires for participation in social justice issues with academic training that may not immediately feel relevant. She was also recognized with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award in 2023 for her commitment to addressing social problems, improving the general welfare of humankind, and providing community benefit beyond the traditional duties of a faculty member.
“As someone who was trained in mathematical social science, I had often felt a large gulf between the things I studied and the realities I observed around me… It sometimes feels as if the choice is either to stay with our respective discipline and stand on the sidelines of social justice, or to jump into these efforts directly at the expense of using our academic skills,” she shared in her director’s message on the CAASI website.
Dr. Linardi will be traveling to New York in the spring to begin her role with EAAMO as a Siegel Public Interest Tech (PiTech) Faculty Impact Fellow at Cornell University’s graduate school and research center, Cornell Tech. The fellowship, selected annually and with terms ranging from six to twelve months, intends to provide a platform for established faculty to explore a public interest technology venture or initiative during a sabbatical from teaching.