Welcoming our new NLP-CoP Community Manager: Bárbara Paes

The MERL Tech Initiative is happy announce that — thanks to some much needed core funding from the Packard Foundation — we have a new Community Manager for the Natural Language Processing Community of Practice (NLP-CoP): Bárbara Paes.

Get to know our new Community Manager 

Bárbara (she/her) is a researcher and project manager with over a decade of experience working with civil society organizations on issues related to social justice, power and technology. 

Previously, Bárbara has worked with organizations such as Article 19 Brazil, Glitch UK, and The Engine Room, where she has done research, communications and advocacy related to issues such as freedom of information, information disorder, tech-facilitated gender-based violence, and responsible data. Bárbara is also the co-founder of Instituto Minas Programam, where she facilitates spaces for Black Brazilian girls and women to learn about technology through feminist and anti-racist perspectives. 

Bárbara hopes to strengthen the NLP-CoP with her commitment to promoting ethical, responsible use of technologies in social sector work, her past community management experience, and her passion for creating spaces for collective learning:

“Through my past work, I’ve seen how important it can be for individuals working in sectors like international development, humanitarian, human rights, peace building, and philanthropy to find trusted spaces where they can simultaneously share their experiences using technologies for their work and engage in much needed conversations about the questions, challenges and risks that these may bring.

As Community Manager, Bárbara will focus on managing and improving member experiences, and helping us deepen and grow the impact of the NLP-CoP:

“The use of NLP and GenAI in social sector programming seems to be everywhere these days, which makes supporting members of the NLP-CoP to learn about and advocate for more responsible, ethical applications of these technologies something increasingly relevant. I’m looking forward to acting as a bridge-builder for members, facilitating connections between people working in different sectors, and expanding the space for collective conversations and critical reflection about NLP and GenAI.”

Together with Bárbara, The MERL Tech Initiative looks forward to another year of sustaining a diverse network of MERL practitioners interested in responsible, appropriate, and effective applications of NLP and GenAI.

Get involved!

If you’re interested in getting involved with the NLP-CoP,  join us! We are a community of over 1100 practitioners working at the intersection of monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL), AI and other digital technologies and the social sector