Following the questions where they lead
Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan has arrived at complex computational methods for helping democracy thrive. A profile of MIT Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan explores how she develops complex computational methods for helping democracy thrive. Michaela Jarvis | MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems Publication Date : July 17, 2026 Press Inquiries Press Contact : Amanda Moore Email: amm@mit.
Key Takeaways
- edu Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems : "From the beginning, I got this sense of belonging at MIT - like my ways of thinking and problem-solving, which had seemed peculiar in many situations, actually made me belong more," says Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan.
"This was a super refreshing feeling, and it has been 100 percent borne out since I arrived.
- By high school, Flanigan was intensely drawn to particular subjects.
"I found myself unmotivated to take all the AP [advanced placement] classes for the sake of it.
- She has been involved in research at the University of Wisconsin, the National Institutes of Health, Google, and Carnegie Mellon, Drexel, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford universities.
Her current work focuses on using computational and mathematical tools to create new avenues for meaningful democratic participation.
- Along the way, I wound up in a lot of situations where I was less well-trained or qualified in the standard ways.
While this was sometimes precarious, it was also incredibly fun, and it cultivated my ability to learn the languages of new disciplines more easily - a skill pretty much essential to my current research and job.
- So Flanigan moved toward public health, where she researched microfluidic devices for HIV detection that could be used in low-resource settings.
A profile of MIT Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan explores how she develops complex computational methods for helping democracy thrive. Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan has arrived at complex computational methods for helping democracy thrive. Michaela Jarvis | MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems Publication Date : July 17, 2026 Press Inquiries Press Contact : Amanda Moore Email: amm@mit.
edu Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems : "From the beginning, I got this sense of belonging at MIT - like my ways of thinking and problem-solving, which had seemed peculiar in many situations, actually made me belong more," says Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan. "This was a super refreshing feeling, and it has been 100 percent borne out since I arrived. " Credits : Photo: Jerard Welcome Previous image Next image Ever since she was a child playing on her family's farmland in Wisconsin, Bailey Flanigan was guided by her own selective, yet wide-ranging, curiosity.
Describing her young self as spirited and a bit unruly, she directed her energies to everything from building booby traps to doing experimental construction projects to exploring an intense interest in medicine to writing fiction and music to planning nonprofit organizations to help lessen social inequality. By high school, Flanigan was intensely drawn to particular subjects. "I found myself unmotivated to take all the AP [advanced placement] classes for the sake of it.
For more details please read the original article at MIT News AI.
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