Karen Colbert, an AI strategist, data scientist, and Lead Math Faculty at Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College, speaks with Pitt HexAI Producer, Brent Phillips about tribal colleges and their mission and vision to revitalize language and culture through education, the indigenization of math and teaching math, computing and data science in the AI age, collaboration tools, data sharing and privacy, explainability and storytelling, project ideation, AI applications, data annotation, and life lessons for students.

Karen Colbert is an AI strategist, data scientist, keynote speaker, and a nationally recognized advocate for STEM education. She currently serves as the General Education Department Chair and Lead Math Faculty at Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College, a Tribal College, where she advances data and computational literacy for Indigenous students. Notably, Karen became the first Data Carpentries Instructor and Trainer among all Tribal Colleges, pioneering efforts to bridge the digital divide in higher education. Her passion lies in ensuring that non-traditional, re-entry, and adult learners are not left behind in the AI revolution. Karen is passionate about sharing her insights on “digital sovereignty in the age of AI.” Specifically, she has a deep interest in exploring how AI is reshaping education, research, and opportunity, challenging educators to lead with cultural integrity as technology evolves.

She also has an upcoming book 'The Algorithm wasn't Built for Us: Reclaiming the Future of AI, Education, and Culture' available July 4 on Amazon. Visit her website: https://www.karencolbert.com/

Anatea Einhorn, Research Assistant with the University of Pittsburgh’s Health and Explainable AI Research Laboratory, speaks with Pitt HexAI podcast host Jordan Gass-Pooré about her work and studies linking artificial intelligence and machine learning, statistics and public health, and about explainable AI, the future of work, and the importance of exchange programs and working abroad. Jordan and Anatea dig into data and data analysis, differences between personal health and public health, and into explainability from a public health perspective.

Janneta Tabakov, Enterprise Growth Lead with Perplexity who focuses on AI in biotech and biopharma speaks with Pitt HexAI Podcast host Jordan Gass-Pooré about her work at Perplexity, a popular and fast-growing new AI-powered answer engine that’s redefining search and information discovery in the AI era. Janneta and Jordan discuss how Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) makes information discovery clear, trustworthy, and accessible, especially in fields like health, medicine, and science and they touch on Janneta’s prior work at Arima Genomics, the field of 3D genomics, Hi-C technology and the visualization and mapping of DNA structures.

The episode is geared towards introducing students and healthcare professionals to new AI-powered search tools and information discovery processes. The episode highlights how tools like Perplexity are advancing explainable AI in information discovery by making the search and synthesis process transparent, interactive, and easy to understand, helping users not only find answers, but also understand the reasoning and evidence behind them.

Janneta and Jordan also discuss the accelerating pace of AI innovation and the dynamic momentum that startups like Perplexity are driving in the industry, setting new benchmarks in healthcare and research.