Francielle Vargas      
Francielle Vargas
Francielle Vargas

I obtained a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Natural Language Processing, both earned in Computer Science and Computational Mathematics from the University of São Paulo (USP). I also hold a BS in Information Systems and a BA in Linguistics. During my Ph.D., I was a visiting researcher at the University of Southern California (USC) in the USA and an invited researcher and speaker at the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS) in Germany. I am proud to have received recognition at both the national and international levels. I received the Google Latin America Research Award (LARA) and the Maria Carolina Monard Award for the Best Thesis in Artificial Intelligence. I was also a winner of the Trevisan Prize “AI for Good” from Bocconi University, which is given in recognition of rigorous AI research with social impact. In addition, I was nominated by the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) for the Thesis Awards in both the broad Computer Science category and the Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Web category. I have also actively contributed to ACL and AAAI international conferences and workshops, serving as a program committee member and co-organizing International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH), and Explainable Deep Neural Networks for Responsible AI (DeepXplain), along with shared tasks on hate speech [i] [ii]. My research focus on enhancing the interpretability and robustness of Language Models (LMs), while ensuring their alignment with safety, factuality, and fairness. With significant contributions to addressing hate speech and misinformation in underrepresented communities, my research has advanced the development of methods and benchmark datasets that aim to promote transparency and accountability in AI systems.

Awards, Fellowships, and Research Grants
  • 2025: International Trevisan Prize "AI for Good" (Bocconi University)
  • 2025: Maria Carolina Monard Best Thesis Award in AI (USP)
  • 2025: Nominated for the Thesis Award in Computer Science (SBC)
  • 2025: Nominated for the Thesis Award in Social Media and Web (SBC)
  • 2025: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (FAPESP)
  • 2024: Google Latin America Research Award (LARA)
  • 2024: Awarded the ACL D&I Grant (EMNLP & NAACL)
  • 2020: Doctoral Research Fellowship (SINCH)
  • 2015: Master’s Research Scholarship (CAPES)
  • 2013: Undergraduate Research Scholarship (CNPq)
  • 2013: Outstanding Academic Achievement Award in CL (UFMG)
  • 2012: Outstanding Academic Achievement Award in CL (UFMG)
Research Projects

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