Vidya is a postdoctoral researcher studying machine learning for biodiversity, as part of the “Benchmark for Nature” project for the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on Biodiversity and Society. She has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute previously, studying the spread of misinformation over social networks as part of the Programme on Democracy and Technology.

Vidya has also worked at the Oxford Institute for Radiational Oncology as a postdoctoral researcher from Jan 2021 – Dec 2021. She worked on a collaborative project between Oncology and the Oxford Robotics Institute to develop automated techniques for cancer radiation therapy, using  AI and Robotics. She worked with a multidisciplinary team to re-engineer the radiotherapy planning process for the benefit of cancer patients.

Her research interests, lie in the interface between technology, ethics and policy, and she is primarily engaged in developing systems that use technology for the greater good of society. She completed her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Southampton, building adaptive techniques for automated negotiations. Prior to this, she completed her M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, working on problems in decentralised decision making, specifically in the defence logistics domain. Her basic background is in Mathematics, which she studied at the masters level at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and as an undergraduate at the University of Madras. She has also worked as a scientific coordinator at BAE Systems and as a software engineer at Tech Mahindra. She tweets from @vidunarayanan