Gabriele La Malfa

Can you tell us about your PhD?

I am in my third year of a four-year PhD at King’s Doctoral College, working on a project on safe and trusted Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI is a very generic term to indicate a decision making process – something we can use to make a decision in place of humans. When we do this we need to make sure that the decision the AI makes is ethically correct, or in my project’s case, fair.

Is AI not inherently fair or balanced?

No, it can also be subject to bias, depending on the data it is using. To give an example, there was a famous case in the US where an algorithm was helping judges make decisions against defendants. They found later that it was biased against some populations including Black people and it wasn’t fair in terms of gender.

I am finding ways to measure the fairness of AI decisions, then how we can work to enhance fairness. We hope this will find ways to stop the damage unfairness could cause, by proposing rules that could change the way it works.

Why did you choose King’s to do your PhD?

So my choice was very much related to my supervisor. I always say that when you have an interview, it is always double-sided. It was very important for me to ask questions too. I liked my supervisor for his charm and his capacity to engage me in the topic. I decided the topic was a good choice because I care about doing something that is useful for people.

Did you get any training and support during your PhD?

The King’s Doctoral College is a good thing because it creates a group of people who come together to help each other through our PhDs.

Some of the training isn’t as relevant to your specific research topic, but it is important to have knowledge outside of your field.

Do you see other support available at King’s?

I have been impressed by how reactive King’s has been to issues around Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). King’s is proactive about this and provides a protected environment, somewhere we are safe. Where issues have arisen, they have been proactive in providing facilitation meetings to find a solution.

When we organise events, we try hard to make the environment safe for people. 

For example, we had facilitators who were trained on managing sessions like this properly. I have learnt so much about how important it is to be careful about the way you organise things.

Could you tell us about the EDI dialogue events?

We were running events on privilege, and topics relating to discrimination, inequality and racism – covering topics including ability and disability, and sexuality.

As an institution, King’s is already promoting EDI, and that is important. But I always think that institutions are created by people. I was inspired by someone else here doing a PhD, and she was very interested in this topic too. So we co-organised these events together, and now she has graduated, I take the lead.

We related the events to a newspaper article or a video, so the topic was anchored in something. Then we made sure it was engaging and interactive, so everyone was welcome to speak, and share their views and experiences. The events were funded by the King’s Doctoral College and the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences. We are trying to expand the programme across the university now.

Do you have any advice for people starting their PhD now?

Get the most out of your time. You come here and spend years doing a PhD, it would be a shame if you just wrote papers and your thesis then went home.

Try to get to know as many people as possible, and do as many projects as possible. This helps you make friends, and focus on something other than your research.

What do you want to do after your PhD?

I want to be to stay in academia, and I am thinking about which other universities I would like to work in. My big dream is to go to the US, but the research is very different there and I would need to learn about it. Asian countries are also very interesting at the moment, so doing a visit to Asia might be helpful.

Is there anything that surprised you about doing a PhD?

At the beginning of my PhD I thought the hardest time would be at the end when the deadlines kicked in. The truth is that is not where you will have the main challenges. There are ups and downs you will face every week. One week you have good results and are happy, then for a month you have no results and feel a bit lost.

But there are resources at King’s to help you deal with this. There are societies you can go to that help you build a support network. There is access to a gym which is less expensive than a normal gym in London. There is a counselling service and even a GP on site.

What advice would you give to someone doing a PhD now?

My advice to everyone doing a PhD is to remember you were selected for a reason. It is easy to wonder if you are the best person to do this, you ask yourself why didn’t they pick that other person with the master's in computer science? 

And don’t, whatever you do, fall into the trap of comparing yourself to anybody else during your PhD. This really doesn’t make any sense, we are all doing different projects and comparison is a waste of time and energy. There are people that never publish and they are still very successful, and it doesn't matter.

Everything is very relative in the PhD, and in life in general. We need to make sure we don’t push ourselves too much. We have just one life and there will be no remake. This is something that I always try to remember.