May 24, 10:30 AM – 11:45 AM
McCosh Hall, Room 10

Moderator:

Sanjeev Arora
Director, Princeton Language and Intelligence; Charles C. Fitzmorris Professor in Computer Science

Panelists:

Edward Tenner ’65
Distinguished Scholar, Lemelson Center, Smithsonian; Lecturer, Princeton First-Year Seminars Program

Harriet Pearson ’85
Managing Principal, Axia Advisory LLC

Eric Kaplan ’90
Senior Advisor, Milken Institute

Ayushi Sinha ’20
Founder, Turmerik

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Moderator:

Sanjeev Arora
Sanjeev Arora is interested in foundational and conceptual understanding of modern AI methods. He joined Princeton in 1994 after obtaining his Ph.D. at University of California-Berkeley. He has won the Fulkerson Prize in Discrete Mathematics (2012); the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Prize in Computing (2011); the Gödel Prize, sponsored jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computational Theory (SIGACT) (co-winner) (2001, 2010); the Packard Fellowship (1997); and the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award (1995). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is an ACM Fellow. He was a plenary lecturer at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2018.

Participants:

Edward Tenner ’65
Edward Tenner holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and has been a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. A former executive editor for physical science and history at Princeton University Press, he has been a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council and a visitor in the Princeton departments and programs of geosciences, English, sociology (FRS 151, “Understanding Disasters”), and information technology policy, as well as in the Institute for Advanced Study and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is author of “Why Things Bite Back,” “The Efficiency Paradox,” and, most recently, “Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge.” He is a frequent academic and corporate speaker and has given two mainstage TED Talks. He is on the board of directors of the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Harriet Pearson ’85
Harriet Pearson helps organizations address cybersecurity and data regulation and risk through her consultancy, Axia Advisory. Until 2024, Pearson led the cybersecurity division of New York State’s financial services regulator. Prior to government service, Pearson was a partner for a decade at Hogan Lovells, where she founded and led the cybersecurity practice. Before Hogan Lovells, she served as IBM’s first vice president, assistant general counsel for cybersecurity and chief privacy officer. During her 19 years at IBM, she held executive roles spanning legal/compliance, government affairs, human resources and communications. Internationally recognized for pioneering work in cybersecurity and data privacy law and policy, she was named North America’s “Legal Innovator of the Year” by the Financial Times and “Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Trailblazer” by the National Law Journal. She and Steve Pearson ’84 co-own and operate two community-based ventures in Shepherdstown, West Virginia: a restored vaudeville theater and a local newspaper.

Eric Kaplan ’90
Eric Kaplan leverages 30-plus years in housing and consumer finance, banking, policy, law and advocacy to promote collaboration among a range of financial services stakeholders and foster individual economic empowerment. He most recently served as executive vice president of Operation HOPE, leading the nonprofit’s Financial Literacy for All and AI Ethics Council initiatives. Kaplan previously led the Milken Institute’s housing finance policy program and continues to serve the think tank as a senior advisor. A recognized leader in securitization and mortgage reform, Kaplan serves on the Kroll Bond Rating Agency board, chaired the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board and is a former Structured Finance Association and MISMO board member. Kaplan continues to pursue his interests in advancing housing and consumer finance, financial literacy and ethical AI. He holds an A.B. in politics from Princeton and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

Ayushi Sinha ’20
Ayushi Sinha is the founder and CEO of Turmerik, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup helping the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry recruit global patients for clinical trials. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated cum laude from Princeton with a degree in computer science and a certificate in cognitive science. Sinha received a Fulbright Fellowship and National Science Foundation funding for her work in AI. Previously, she was an investor at Bain Capital Ventures, a product manager and software engineer on AI teams at Microsoft, and a member of the product team at Nines, where she contributed to the development of FDA-approved AI for radiology. While a student at Princeton, Sinha co-founded WellPower, a social enterprise focused on water filtration and distribution in East Africa.