McCourt School’s Tech & Public Policy Center Awards New Funding Supporting Research on AI in Criminal Justice, Health Care and Democratic Governance

“These grants move beyond abstract debates about AI to examine how these technologies are actually being deployed, who they affect, and what guardrails are needed,” said Carole Roan Gresenz, Dean of the McCourt School of Public Policy. “Our faculty are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between technical innovation and sound public policy.”

The funded projects span three broad themes: understanding how AI systems operate within public institutions, examining public attitudes and online behaviors in an era of algorithmic influence and evaluating regulatory and governance frameworks for emerging technologies.

AI in Policy

Governments and policymakers are increasingly turning to AI tools. Are they doing so effectively? Or are there risks that regulators need to mitigate?  

To answer these questions, TPP is tracking, learning from and improving on uses of AI tools in criminal justice, health care and education policy. 

Associate Professor Andrea Headley, faculty director of the Evidence for Justice Lab, is leading a comprehensive study mapping AI deployments across the U.S. criminal justice system. The project will survey 350 cities and 150 counties to document where and how AI is being used, and will conduct community-engaged fieldwork to assess how justice personnel and impacted communities perceive these tools’ fairness and accountability.

In health care, Assistant Research Professor Amy Killelea of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms will investigate how health insurers and third-party data vendors use AI to process prior authorization requests—a widespread and increasingly controversial practice—and will assess the consumer risks and benefits of growing reliance on these automated systems.

And internationally, Distinguished Professor Jishnu Das will lead a project evaluating whether AI-assisted winter schools can improve foundational learning outcomes among primary school children in Quetta, Balochistan, offering a potentially scalable model for how governments can leverage technology in education. Winter schools are government-sponsored winter camps in the province’s colder regions aimed at preventing learning losses during the extended winter holidays.

Social Media, Platforms and Democratic Governance

Another priority for TPP is to understand how social media, online platforms and other information technology affect society—and to build from that understanding to develop actionable policy agendas for reducing harm and protecting benefits.  

Assistant Professor Tiago Ventura’s work provides critical infrastructure for these efforts. He will lead a team of researchers to build a secure, privacy-preserving data-donation pipeline that allows consenting participants to share portions of their conversational AI histories for research—shedding light on how people use tools like ChatGPT in sensitive domains including politics and health, and informing governance approaches to reduce harms.

Knowing that algorithms amplify outrage doesn’t, on its own, make people less susceptible to it, Professor Nejla Asimovic will investigate whether structured, reflective engagement with algorithmic dynamics can reduce outrage-driven reactions and improve how people relate to those in other groups. The project will identify which specific forms of engagement actually shift intergroup attitudes and behavior, and develop scalable tools that put those approaches into practice.

TPP researchers build from research toward tangible solutions. Associate Research Professor Renée DiResta will develop and evaluate whether large language model-assisted counterspeech can help produce clearer, faster and more evidence-grounded Community Notes to reduce the harms of health misinformation on social media.

In addition, policy change will require political will. Associate Professor Jonathan Ladd will conduct a major national survey measuring the public’s hopes and fears about the technology industry and AI, and will convene a conference examining the public’s evolving relationship with big tech. This knowledge will help policymakers appreciate what citizens want, a vital first step in developing effective policy.

Regulating AI

The third priority for TPP is translating research knowledge into smart regulation. Professor Meg Leta Jones of Georgetown’s Communication, Culture & Technology program and Professor Paul Ohm from the Law Center are working with state attorneys general to generate empirical evidence documenting potential non-compliance with privacy and AI regulations. Their work allows students to produce knowledge that goes directly to policymakers grappling with the complexities of regulating tech.

Peter F. Krogh Professor Erik Voeten in the School of Foreign Service will broaden the lens on AI regulation to examine how U.S. AI regulations shape the adoption of AI abroad, with a focus on how domestic regulatory guardrails could facilitate—rather than hinder—the global diffusion of American AI technologies amid great power competition.

The Tech & Public Policy (TPP) Center at the McCourt School of Public Policy works to shape technology’s promise for a better world. Tech & Public Policy catalyzes cross-disciplinary research, supports emerging leaders, and convenes experts and policymakers to address the challenges and opportunities posed by our ever-evolving digital society.