San­dra L Blood

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Pro­fes­sor Renée Cum­mings is re­defin­ing what it means to lead in the age of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI). As AI rewrites the rules of so­ci­ety, she’s mak­ing sure jus­tice, ethics, eq­ui­ty, safe­ty and re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance aren’t left be­hind.

Cum­mings has been trail­blaz­ing as an AI in­no­va­tor and is be­ing recog­nised in the halls of glob­al pow­er.

An in­au­gur­al Da­ta Ac­tivist-in-Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia’s (UVA) School of Da­ta Sci­ence and Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice in Da­ta Sci­ence, her im­pact stretch­es far be­yond the uni­ver­si­ty.

At The Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion in Wash­ing­ton, DC, she is a non-res­i­dent se­nior fel­low and co-di­rec­tor of the AI Eq­ui­ty Lab. She al­so con­tributes to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards through her roles with the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum’s Da­ta Eq­ui­ty Coun­cil and Glob­al AI Gov­er­nance Al­liance.

Cum­mings is al­so a mem­ber of the Glob­al Aca­d­e­m­ic Net­work at the Cen­ter for AI and Dig­i­tal Pol­i­cy, ad­vanc­ing re­spon­si­ble tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­cy­mak­ing.

With her strong back­ground in crime and law, Cum­mings helps lead a uni­ver­si­ty pro­gramme that sup­ports new tech­nol­o­gy projects aimed at help­ing so­ci­ety. She en­cour­ages tech­nol­o­gists to cre­ate in­no­v­a­tive tools that serve the pub­lic and make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in peo­ple’s lives.

Recog­nised among the top 100 women in AI ethics, her thought lead­er­ship has in­flu­enced glob­al pol­i­cy­mak­ers, in­clud­ing the US Sen­ate and the Supreme Court of Brazil. Her ex­per­tise spans risk man­age­ment, com­pet­i­tive vig­i­lance, and pub­lic sec­tor in­no­va­tion.

Cum­mings is known for trans­lat­ing com­plex sub­jects in­to com­pelling nar­ra­tives, mak­ing re­spon­si­ble da­ta sci­ence ac­ces­si­ble and im­pact­ful. Her work ex­em­pli­fies imag­i­na­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and prin­ci­pled lead­er­ship, ad­vo­cat­ing for tech­nol­o­gy that em­pow­ers peo­ple and so­ci­eties in an in­creas­ing­ly AI-dri­ven fu­ture.

Ref­er­enc­ing young peo­ple, Cum­mings ex­plained, “AI is the fu­ture, and that’s where young peo­ple must thrive, and ac­tu­al­ly, the on­ly space young peo­ple can ex­ist in is in the fu­ture.

“Young peo­ple, we all, need to grasp the pre­req­ui­sites of life in an AI-dri­ven world, how to shape it, har­ness its po­ten­tial, un­der­stand the per­ils, and po­si­tion our­selves for suc­cess, rather than be­com­ing pas­sive sub­jects of AI’s pow­er and in­flu­ence.”

Cum­mings added that un­der­stand­ing AI isn’t just about adap­ta­tion; “it’s about en­sur­ing they con­trol the nar­ra­tive rather than be­ing de­fined by it and con­trolled by it”.

The ex­treme­ly com­posed and easy­go­ing pro­fes­sor is stead­fast in her con­vic­tion: She be­lieves AI is the key to un­lock­ing the fu­ture.

“With­out AI you may be rel­e­gat­ed to tech­no­log­i­cal ob­scu­ri­ty or tech­no­log­i­cal ex­tinc­tion. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, fu­tures are now be­ing as­signed by al­go­rithm.”

Renée Cum­mings brings a rare blend of ex­per­tise to the in­ter­sec­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice, polic­ing, da­ta sci­ence, and AI. With a back­ground in crim­i­nol­o­gy, crim­i­nal psy­chol­o­gy, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and sub­stance abuse ther­a­py, she al­so draws from her work in ther­a­peu­tic ju­rispru­dence and ter­ror­ism stud­ies.

In ad­di­tion to that, her ex­pe­ri­ence as a jour­nal­ist and broad­cast­er makes it clear why she has be­come such a pow­er­ful, mul­ti­di­men­sion­al voice in shap­ing the fu­ture of re­spon­si­ble tech­nol­o­gy.

Cum­mings brings to­geth­er a pow­er­ful mix of skills to dri­ve change in crim­i­nal jus­tice and pub­lic safe­ty. She com­bines her ex­per­tise in crime pre­ven­tion, foren­sic psy­chol­o­gy, be­hav­iour­al an­a­lyt­ics, and al­go­rith­mic de­ci­sion-mak­ing to help re­shape jus­tice sys­tems across the globe.d.

Whether she’s build­ing train­ing pro­grammes, au­dit­ing pub­lic pol­i­cy, or ad­vis­ing on how AI is shap­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice on a glob­al scale, her work is ground­ed in both the­o­ry and prac­tice.

She brings ex­pe­ri­ence in cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­ves­tiga­tive in­ter­view­ing, help­ing lead­ers nav­i­gate tough de­ci­sions in a time of dig­i­tal de­cep­tion. Her voice is a lead­ing one in re­spon­si­ble in­no­va­tion, po­lice lead­er­ship, and pub­lic pol­i­cy re­form.

Cum­mings plays a key role in shap­ing the fu­ture of AI crim­i­nol­o­gy and pub­lic safe­ty. She helps law en­force­ment agen­cies around the world un­der­stand and nav­i­gate emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies.

Her ex­per­tise cov­ers home­land and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems, and large-scale trans­for­ma­tion—equip­ping of­fi­cers to tack­le mis­in­for­ma­tion, build pub­lic trust, and adapt com­mu­ni­ca­tion roles in an era de­fined by un­cer­tain­ty and dig­i­tal dis­trust.

Cum­mings’ work bridges the geopol­i­tics of AI, da­ta sov­er­eign­ty, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy. She draws on a wide range of ex­per­tise to help po­lice agen­cies nav­i­gate a rapid­ly chang­ing tech­no­log­i­cal land­scape.

Wide­ly recog­nised in the field of me­dia com­mu­ni­ca­tion and lit­i­ga­tion pub­lic re­la­tions, Cum­mings al­so brings decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in strate­gic mes­sag­ing, is­sues man­age­ment, and pub­lic pol­i­cy align­ment. She has trained spokesper­sons, gov­ern­ment lead­ers, and agen­cies across the globe in how to man­age AI-pow­ered in­tel­li­gence sys­tems and re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to mis­in­for­ma­tion.

In 2023, in part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed Na­tions, she re­turned to her home­land, Trinidad and To­ba­go, where she led a Mas­ter­class in Par­lia­ment ti­tled The Re­al­i­ty of Ad­vanced Big Da­ta An­a­lyt­ics, AI & Plan­ning for the Fu­ture.

The moth­er of daugh­ter Yja—whom she calls her “great­est achieve­ment and great­est in­spi­ra­tion”—de­scribes life as her hob­by. She is the el­der of two sib­lings and the daugh­ter of dis­tin­guished, award-win­ning par­ents: for­mer for­eign ser­vice of­fi­cer and per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Roslyn Khan-Cum­mings, and North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League star and na­tion­al foot­ball coach Ever­ald “Gal­ly” Cum­mings.

She al­so con­sid­ers her grand­moth­er El­sa Khan of St Thomas Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas, as her “mom”.

Born in Port-of-Spain, where she live for a while, she spent her for­ma­tive years in Ch­agua­nas, Mex­i­co, Cana­da, and Spain, but was raised pri­mar­i­ly in Man­hat­tan, USA. Her strong pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney be­gan at Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry, Bish­op Anstey High School, and St Joseph’s Con­vent Port-of-Spain.

As a youth, she be­came the first fe­male sports­cast­er in T&T and the Caribbean.

Through her ded­i­ca­tion to in­spir­ing change and ad­vanc­ing eth­i­cal prac­tices, Cum­mings con­tin­ues to be a glob­al force for in­no­va­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, and lead­er­ship—pow­er­ful­ly shap­ing how AI can be used re­spon­si­bly in our world.

On June 27, dur­ing New York State’s Kings Coun­ty Caribbean Amer­i­can Her­itage Month, she will be ho­n­oured by the Supreme Court for her con­tri­bu­tions to AI gov­er­nance, AI in­no­va­tion, and pi­o­neer­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice lead­er­ship.