Speaker: Sachin Kumar, Mittal Family Climate Fellow, Mittal Institute
Moderator: Patrick Vinck, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Research Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Global institutions and the Paris Agreement set a high bar for global climate action, requiring countries to make Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The gap between promises, commitments, and the actual state of climate action outcomes is visible and widely reported. Can AI close the gap between climate pledges and real-world outcomes? This seminar explores AI’s potential for Climate action accountability.
Dr. Sachin Kumar is the Mittal Family Climate Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. His research advances AI/ML, Urban Computing, AI for Social Good, and computational social science(CSS) for climate change and sustainability. He has over 30 research publications in top-reputed journals and conferences. He has authored three books on AI-related topics, one of which, “Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence and Society: Opportunities and Challenges”, recently received the Top Cited Book Award from Springer Nature.
Prof. Patrick Vinck is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He is Co-Founder and Director of KoBoToolbox and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Data-Pop Alliance. His research focuses on the use of data and technology in humanitarian crises, governance, and development, with extensive field experience across conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable regions in the Global South.
