The New School for Social Research, Sociology, Ph.D., 2025
Ahad Ali holds an MA in Sociology from The New School (TNS), New York, an MBA from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi and a Bachelor of Sciences (BSc.) from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore. He has worked at Geo/Jang Media Group on education public policies and elections, and the Dawn Media Group in television journalism. As a doctoral candidate at The New School for Social Research, his work revolves around how expertise is enacted in the construction of AI Large Language Models. His current research interests lie in the history of science and technology, digital media, sociology of expertise, sociology of AI and Critical Algorithm Studies. During his time at TNS, he has taught classes on Statistics, Open Source Software, Video Games, and Communication as well as serving as instructor for classes on Media Studies and Internet Studies. Over the same time period, he has held various Fellowships including GIDEST (Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought), Lang Social Sciences Fellowship, Global Dialogues, as well as winning the Dean’s and PhD Prize scholarships.
As the AI & Ethics Signpost Fellow, Ahad will support the launch of signpost.ai, a dynamic and innovative lab within the IRC focused on leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create universal access to information for people affected by conflict, crisis, or climate. Ahad will play an important role in documenting AI development processes, crafting insightful research write ups, and consolidating learnings so that they can be effectively disseminated to a global audience. His work will contribute to the lab’s mission of de-risking AI applications in humanitarian settings and scaling successful innovations to achieve widespread impact.