Virginia Dignum

In 2018 Dignum joined Umeå University as a Professor of AI and Society. Her research is supported by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program. She is interested in the ethical and cultural impacts of artificial intelligence, and ways to make AI both optimised and transparent for the people who are impacted by it. She is a Fellow of the European Artificial Intelligence Association. She hopes that AI will not be seen as only a computer science discipline, but one which interacts with all academic areas.

She was made an Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology in 2009. In 2011 she was appointed Vice President of the Benelux Vereniging voor Kunstmatige Intelligentie (BNVKI), the Benelux Association for AI, a position she held until 2017.

After graduating from university of Lisbon in 1987, Dignum moved to Amsterdam where she completed a MSc in Computer science at the Vrije Universiteit in 1989. She then worked in consultancy and system development. In 2003 Dignum returned to academic computer science and she earned her doctorate in computer science at Utrecht University in 2004. She was appointed as an Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology. She was made a Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Veni laureate in 2006 for her work in agent-based organisational frameworks.

Maria Virgínia Ferreira de Almeida Júdice Gamito Dignum (born 2 May 1964, in Lisbon, Portugal) is a Professor of Computer Science at Umeå University, and an Associated Professor at Delft University of Technology. She leads the Social and Ethical Artificial Intelligence research group. Her research and writing considers responsible AI and the development evaluation of human-agent team work.