“I’ve found that having role models and mentors who I resonate with is so important – a lot of people have so many questions and . . . may not have someone who can relate enough to even answer in the first place.” – Rana el Kaliouby
Rana el Kaliouby was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1978. She obtained her B.S. and Masters at American University in Cairo and her Ph.D. at Cambridge. As a child, her ambition towards science was considered abnormal; however, her family supported efforts and her mother served as a role model. She worked as a research scientist at MIT until co-founding Affectiva. Her work has focused on integrating human emotions with AI response in technology. el Kaliouby focuses on using emotional AI to improve automobile safety, emotion interpretation for autistic or visually impaired individuals, and enable more human interactions through technology. She has been listed as Forbes top 50 women, MIT’s innovators under 35, BBC 100 women in 2019.