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As part of TechCrunch’s ongoing Women in AI series, which seeks to give female AI-focused academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch interviewed Marissa Humon, chief technology officer at energy company Utilidata, where It works to make the electrical grid more sustainable.
“The work I do at Utilidata goes against the status quo of the utility industry,” Homon told TechCrunch, adding that AI is poised to help the utility sector operate more effectively. “It will provide utilities with the tools they need to operate a clean, modern and reliable grid that will better serve the people and businesses connected to it.”
Homon began her career at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where she focused on how to move the energy industry away from carbon-intensive solutions to cleaner sources. She recalled that she had to take a new approach to modeling because some of the physical equations were “unsolvable using traditional analysis methods.”
“Instead, we needed to use numerical methods and machine learning,” she said. This was back in 2010.
Advice for women
Homon moved up, working at energy company Tendril before landing a CTO position at Utilidata, a position she has held since 2018. She earned a doctorate in applied physics from Harvard University and said that as she transitioned from graduate school to field engineering, I noticed a significant decline in the number of women working in this field. “I often felt the pressure of being held to higher standards in the workplace than my male counterparts,” she said.
Now as a leader, Homon said she tries to lead by example and create opportunities for women to lead and get recognition. At the same time, men should be responsible for creating space for more women to enter and remain in the field, she added.
“The change we need is not just about practice; “It has to be systematic and broad,” she continued. “It starts with recruiting and hiring, continues with mentoring and training, and culminates in fair and equitable recognition and promotion — all while creating a safe and inclusive workplace.”
Her advice to women entering the AI field is to always remember that being a woman can be an advantage. “It gave you a different perspective than your male counterparts, and technological advances always come from unique perspectives.”
She says she looks for opportunities with companies that have demonstrated a commitment to diversity and that have leaders who have demonstrated efforts to support women and minorities. “Judge a potential employer by the way they show up in the interview process, not by the statements or reports they put on their website.”
Building ethical AI
Homon said users should know that AI is not something that can solve all problems but rather an expert assistant to enhance operations, improve effectiveness and assist with support.
“Recognizing their borders and ensuring there are appropriate checkpoints is key,” she said.
She said it’s always important to understand how generative AI is trained and built in order to understand any potential biases it may have. “This knowledge is a powerful tool when working with linguistic models to analyze data and evaluate the feasibility of solutions,” she continued. “AI is only as good as the data and information it is trained on.”
She also offered some advice on how to build secure AI, explaining that Utilidata made an early decision to keep all of its data locally. “Approaching model building using distributed AI computing reduces the amount and frequency of information being transferred to the cloud, thus reducing the chances of a security or privacy breach.”
As for investors, she said — like all the experts we spoke to — that they need to evaluate how a company wants to use AI, especially since responsible AI looks different in every industry. “Investment in responsible AI should be proportional to the risks and complexities faced by any given company, not a blanket standard.”
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