Dena Mujtaba is a senior R&D engineer on Kitware’s Computer Vision Team. Her research focuses on ethical AI, multi-agent systems, and the alignment of large language models and reinforcement learning agents. She also contributes to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) In the Moment (ITM) program, focusing on AI in cybersecurity.

Before joining Kitware, Dena was a graduate research assistant at Michigan State University where her research spanned natural language processing, automatic speech recognition, algorithmic fairness, and evolutionary algorithms. She was also a research assistant for the HeardAI project, contributing to the development of a mobile app and speech and text models designed to support speech recognition for people who stutter. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked as a software engineer at Coetic, where she developed web applications using Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and Vue.js, and managed data pipelines and backend systems.

Dena completed her Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at Michigan State University. Her dissertation focused on multimodal fairness in AI-based algorithms for hiring. She also holds a Master of Science in electrical engineering and a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering, both from Michigan State University.

Awards

• Harriett B. Rigas Memorial Endowment for Undergraduate and Graduate Women presented by Michigan State University, August 2018