Episode 6: From IU to Microsoft: Tara Aggarwal's Career Path in AI

Tara Aggarwal is a former IU alum who pursued a dual degree in computer science and business; she was also a former intern at the Center of Excellence for Women & Technology. Discovering her interest between the two disciplines led to her founding the Ethical AI team at the Center. Currently, she works as a Product Manager and Responsible AI Lead at Microsoft. She is pursuing her interest in the Responsible AI field and is involved with innovative features like Copilot on Outlook. In addition, Tara is passionate about advocating people to embrace their stories and feel empowered. 

The Center of Excellence for Women & Tech is a welcoming community on Indiana University’s campus that strives to empower women students, faculty, and alumni to expand their leadership skills, build confidence about technology, and foster community and collaboration between all fields of study and industry. The Center’s Instagram handle is @IUwomenandtech. Please follow us there!

Check out Study Abroad | Kelley to learn about the different global experiences you can immerse yourself in as a business student and maximize your exposure during your time at IU.

Big thanks to Rebecca Ramsey at IU's Center for Language Technology whose work makes this podcast possible! Since 1959, CeLT has overseen the language and computer labs in Ballantine Hall, with the mission of providing the highest quality services to support language teaching, learning, and research at Indiana University. Find out more about their services and resources here.

In addition, you can also learn more about our podcast guest and reach out to her here.

Anshu: 

Hello and welcome to the Women of IU Podcast, the show that highlights and celebrates the important work women do every day at IU and hopes to inspire future women leaders. This podcast is brought to you by the Center of Excellence for Women in Technology, also known as CEWIT. I am Anshu Roja Selvamani. Today I am going to interview Tara Aggarwal. She is an IU alum, a former intern at the center and currently works as an AI lead in Microsoft for Outlook. Before we dive into the conversation, please rate, and review our show on Apple Podcasts and follow the Center on Instagram at @iuwomenintech. You can find out more about today's guests in the show notes and at womenandtech.indiana.edu. Please enjoy the show. Hello, Tara. Welcome to the women of IU podcast. It's so good to have you here with us. Can you start by introducing yourself to our audience? 

Tara: 

Hello everyone, my name is Tara Aggarwal or Tara if that is easier. I am from Seattle working for Microsoft as a product manager, but more specifically as a responsible AI lead. I graduated from IU around 2022 so it hasn't been too long, but definitely glad to be back and glad to be here with you. 

Anshu: 

Awesome! You mentioned you're an AI lead for Outlook, which is quite impressive. So, can you tell us more about what your role entails? 

Tara: 

Sure. So right now, as a responsible AI lead at Outlook, my primary focus is to help future crew. So, you know, any crew that touches AI. Think about maybe that ghost text that you see when you type an e-mail to copilot and all the cool generative AI experiences coming. Any of those experiences, we want to make sure are ethical and responsible, and so my job is to really help those future crews get to the responsible AI standard by following important steps of the responsible AI process. A really cool part of that job means that I also get to help choose what and how we get to that process, and I've really got to leverage a lot of different work that I've done in the past and that I learn about now. 

Anshu: 

Very interesting. What do you think you found the most interesting about the work you do? 

Tara: 

I think it is just so revolutionary and new. You know, I always wanted to work in ethical AI. The transformation that happened from the first couple of months that I joined in August 2022 and then all this generative AI stuff started, and the entire field just has so much to it. There is so much to explore. Something that I am personally interested in is how, you know, people use technology, how they connect to each other, how it impacts the way we communicate. And I am learning a couple of different languages right now, and even to some of those cultural nuances between East Asian culture, South Asian culture, and Hispanic culture. It's so interesting to see how that plays into our technology and our expectations of what it means to be ethical. 

Anshu: 

Awesome. So, let's just take a little step back. We know you are an IU alum and a past intern at CEWIT. So, we would love to know more about your experience at the center and how you think it has helped you with your career. 

Tara: 

I love the center, so I spent a very long time of my college career at the center. I actually took an extra year to finish my dual degree, so it was about 4 1/2 years. During the time at the center, I really do attribute that much of the work that I do today is just feeling like some work on steroids essentially. I think you know, I joined the center as a freshman. I went ahead and applied for the position, thinking that maybe I would want to do some research. Maybe I would just like to have a form where I can teach people what I was learning. I didn't have any experience with code back then, but I still applied to be a woman who code intern and I just tried to demonstrate the love of learning that I had. I didn't need to have the expertise, but I wanted to show that I was passionate about teaching others and about sharing my knowledge with others. So, I joined as a freshman, quickly became the lead intern of women who code once the prior lead graduated. For a couple of years, that was my role at the center. I felt like throughout that time I learned many key lessons that happened in today's world. What is it like to be a manager of a peer? What does it mean to be accountable and have your teammates and your directs be responsible and to really be an advocate for not only yourself, but your teammates and the people around you? To help people connect to different resources and to really start listening actively to people. Then during my last year, I went ahead and moved on to Ethical AI and founded that team because I felt like the woman who code team had done such a great job under my leadership, but it grew stagnant. Sometimes you need a refresh of leadership. So that was also a very important lesson that I feel that many of these takeaways impact the way that I operate in a professional space. 

Anshu: 

During your time at IU, what other organizations were you involved in and how do you think they've helped shape you? 

Tara: 

I think a lot of my organizations that I was involved in kind of went along the same trends of mentorship and of giving back to the community. I was involved in Luddy ambassadors very early on, and I really do thank my Luddy upperclassmen for guiding me through those steps. Again, went through the track of being a volunteer and then the lead and then a Co-chair with my Co-chairs Austin and Sid graduating all together. I think that was such a great experience to talk to prospective students who were just like me, and it was actually a Luddy ambassador who helped me realize that I can do my dual degree here at IU. Then, the other organization that I was actually in town for a couple of weeks ago was the Indiana University Women in Business. Again, an amazing group of women and allies and really just getting to give back to that community and learning how to also pinpoint where I want to make the most impact and I really do thank WIB for that as well. So, both of those organizations really have also impacted me with the soft speaking skills that are so in demand today. I also think all three of these organizations gave me a sense of purpose and helped me figure out what ignited me. I didn't really know what I wanted to be when they first came to IU. Even close to graduation, it was really hard for me to settle on any one thing. So, it not became a question of what do I want to be, but what do I want in my life?  I wanted to get that same feeling I felt in each of those organizations where I was giving back, making an impact and making sure people felt heard and seen. So those three definitely demonstrated an area where I can go ahead and do that in a different capacity. 

Anshu: 

Awesome. I heard you also studied abroad for a while, so I want to know how that was like and what were some challenges and lessons learnt. 

Tara: 

Sure. So, I studied abroad in London at the London School of Economics. Shout out to the Kelly Study Abroad Office for really helping me figure out the right program. I definitely could not do a whole semester with the whole dual degree situation. There was also a dream that I really wanted to go to London for the longest time. I think that was my dream city, and that was something I really wanted to realize. So, when I went to London, I did take two classes at the London School of Economics. I took philosophy, which was just to satisfy that arts and humanities credit. Then I took the art and science of decision making, which little did I know that was again going to be kind of the first step I was taking towards AI because it was talking about how we make decisions, what our models that we can use to make decisions, what are the heuristics and biases that we have in our head when we make decisions and so I actually realized that that again was feeding into this unknown interest I had at the time about AI. I definitely loved every single bit about London. It was my first time, though going away from home, so definitely the homesickness. I mean, going to IU, where I'm from Chicago, that’s a 4 hour drive away. Going to London, where you're gone for two months that that's a bit of a different story. So, I think that it was a little bit hard with the homesickness and also just like the plain and sometimes simple but really real truth of trying to take care of yourself and making sure you're staying safe as you're traveling all around. I took myself to France by myself, which was super scary, but I knew French, so I was like, OK, maybe the language will help. It was amazing and I think I really took a lot of key lessons about how to just again love learning for the sake of learning and even the philosophy class, I had to tell myself don't justify it. Don't try to find something that may be more applicable for your degree. Don't try to fall into that chatter that says you gotta map everything to exactly what you want to do for your career. If I was interested in philosophy and interested in how people thought and what the history of that was, and this was my only opportunity to learn it, then why not learn it for the sake of learning it. I think there are things in that philosophy course today that sometimes still, like kind of emanate in my mind and come through in interesting ways. It really helped dictate the rest of my college career where I started to be more open to taking martial arts classes. We have an amazing martial art program here at IU or creative writing and just taking things for the sake of taking them because it is so true what they say that this is your one time to kind of get away with it really easily. Because, then you have to start paying for it out of pocket by yourself once you're out of the college cost mindset. 

Anshu: 

I love how you mentioned martial arts. Did you think the discipline and the skills of that really helped you in your career? 

Tara: 

I think so. I think just the discipline, also work life balance. I've heard different things now I think women in business introduced me to something like work life integration last time I spoke to some of those students, but it was definitely helpful for me to understand that I needed movement in my life. So, in Seattle, I'm actually a dancer outside of work and it's something that a lot of the folks on the Outlook team know, but it is something that I truly love to do. It turns my mind off from just the work stuff and goes into creativity and boosting those endorphins, and I think martial arts really also made me feel stronger and safer while actually moving to a new city all by myself. 

Anshu: 

Awesome. So, coming back, how was it like for you as a woman in the tech business industry which is so competitive? 

Tara: 

It definitely, at a place like Microsoft is much better than most. I mean definitely lots of work to do, but I'm very, very fortunate to be in Outlook. I think Outlook's culture is amazing and that's what I can speak to. A lot of the RAI leadership, I see some amazing strong woman mentors. That said, there are definitely times in the room where I bring up an example, especially in the responsible AI space that may just be attributed to my intersectionality of identity. So, for what I mean by that is, you know, I'm an Indian woman. I'm also an Indian woman who was born and raised in America. I don't speak the language, but I speak other languages and I have this other knowledge of different cultures and so with all of that combined and those are just a couple of aspects, right. My perceived experience with the world and what I see is still valuable, even if there's another woman in there who may share some difference, that may share some similarities and may share some differences, I think that coming into the tech space into Microsoft specifically and into responsible AI, women are very welcomed, and I think that’s very important. In the tech space in general though, and I continue to see this as I talk to students, there is such a tech apprehension of tech is hard as like a barrier to get in. I think that's definitely where I constantly think to myself how do I empower women to realize that, especially with the conversation happening about responsible AI now. How important more than ever it is to have people who are both very technical and non-technical, who have the mindset of a consumer and the mindset of an engineer. I want everyone to feel empowered to enter the conversation because honestly, especially with the way that AI is developing, we need to have more voices besides just the engineering and computer science, the traditional background. We need to have the arts and think about how artists are affected. We need to have writers and think about how writers are affected, business women and so that is something that I'm trying to think about constantly is how do we lower the barrier and enable people with the vocabulary to participate in the conversation, even if they don't need to go down the full route of being super technical. 

Anshu: 

Awesome. What do you see as the future role of women in your industry? 

Tara: 

Again, it's amazing to see how many women are in leadership for responsible AI. Perhaps, maybe because historically we've seen the biases of technology and how it's affected women in the past, right. If you think about Amazon's hiring scandal and that AI algorithm that would take in different resumes and did not realize that it was attributing masculine and feminine traits and prioritizing the masculine ones, right. So, I think there's of course going to be a lot of opportunity in the responsible AI space for women, but for tech in general, we are thankfully entering. We're doing a little bit better every day by having these conversations, and companies like Microsoft are trying to portray a good example. I have an optimistic view, but I don't think that means it's just going to happen naturally. I think it means that everyone still has to lean in more than ever to make sure that we feel equitable when we are working on our day-to-day. 

Anshu: 

That's a great answer. What challenges do you see in your field and how do you think those will evolve in the future. 

Tara: 

I think the, at least in the responsible AI field, how do we make these very complicated new AI systems ethical. There's a couple of different buckets off the bat there if we were to just break apart that sentence. These are new systems. Generative AI comes with, of course, its own different risks. We've been seeing the headlines. We’ve been seeing how you can do it right and how you can mitigate them wrong. I think that there's a lot of interesting opportunity to discover how and where is the line to be drawn, especially between effectiveness and making sure we're not diluting the effectiveness of the solution to making sure it's safe and representative of the people using it. There's always going to be again that ethical dilemma, which is not usually between a wrong and right. It is usually between 2 rights and so how do we balance that line. I think again, the other one is, you know, taking a step towards the future, thinking about how these are systems that can cause very sociotechnical harms. For the first time, we're seeing AI getting to affect someone personally. It can have like a personal reaction. So, if something gets generated that has harmful content in it, that doesn't just affect your professional self, you turn it off when you go home. That could affect your psychological being. So, with a sociotechnical effect, we also have to think about well, what does it mean to be right or wrong personally and for someone to feel like something is right or wrong personally. That's not usually the same among every single person, given their background, their culture, and their experience. So, lots of interesting challenges on how to discover and almost measure that and measurement and data has always served as a point of truth in product, but we are starting to figure out that we need to figure out new metrics and new ways to measure that, something that is so personal. 

Anshu: 

Awesome. You have a story full of struggles, opportunities, and challenges. What advice do you have for students or women earlier in their careers to succeed? 

Tara: 

I have something that could be a little bit of a hot take. Something that I feel like I want to say more and more as I have, especially young women coming up to me saying how are you so confident or how like, how is it that you're confident to be in a room full of men. How are you so confident and like I notice that you wear like red lipstick. I notice that you get dressed up and usually like there is this idea of like you gotta code switch to fit in a little, and something that I've always thought about and took a step back is well if 'm going to enter the room and if I am the different one in the room. If I'm looking at a table and those people don't look like me, right, and the attention is going to naturally look at me for a second because I stand out. Use that attention. Use that attention to say something important, whether it be advocacy, your perspective, whether it be just to get your name out there. I think to not be afraid of being different for the sake of trying to get that table to look more like you in the future. I think that is something that I've definitely have used again and again, and it's given me courage when I've needed it most. Where yes, I'm scared because I seem to be one of the few people. Maybe I'm the youngest in the room. Maybe I'm the only person of color in the room. Maybe I'm the only woman here. Thankfully, in Microsoft I don't encounter that situation too often, but it definitely has happened before in my computer science, and you know, like of course, IU does an amazing job trying to create opportunities. I also had the weirdest schedule with this dual degree. So maybe I was just taking the wrong classes, but I definitely will say that I've used that feeling of OK if people are going to look to me when I walk in the room that I might as well have something to say and I really do think that's advocacy, being able to speak on not just for your sake, but for others as well. I think that's always empowered me to feel like I belong in a room, even if I don't feel like I quite fit in when I first go there. 

Anshu: 

No, as a woman of color, I can totally relate. Even in my classes here, it's been wonderful to see how there is more women these days than hearing stories from my parents and yes, it is so great to see how far we’ve come. On the show, we speak with so many accomplished and inspiring women like yourself, so we want to know who is a woman that inspires you. This could be someone you know personally, or someone whose work you admire. 

Tara: 

There's a lot and I constantly switch between like giving a personal and a professional example. I would like to say that actually, because this is for the center, Michelle has definitely been. Michelle is the director. I don't even know what the title is anymore. Forgive me, Michelle, but Michelle would definitely help. At the time when I was there, she was the assistant director of the undergraduate part. So, like she really got to work with a lot of the students, and I think Michelle honestly was the perfect like leader for me to experience as a student. Of course, I've learned a lot about accountability and learning about myself through her, but I think she's also shown me what is it like to be a leader and not conform to the pressures that sometimes I feel like gets put on woman, right. I think she's a perfect example of how to be assertive and how to really just, like, run a tight ship, but to do it in a way that underlines like respect and makes no room for stereotypes or assumptions, and I really do like that about her. I constantly look towards her for advice, even about my personal and my professional life, and I really do take what she says seriously. A more personal example would probably be Bella Rudo, which I know that may not be a popular name yet. I believe it will be in the future, but she was the woman who took the time to really introduce me to what ethical AI was at Microsoft. I remember getting introduced to her via a teammate and she and I just hit it off. She was so passionate about what she was doing about the on the ground work, the fact that it was a blank canvas, especially at the time I was interning, and we were not just talking about what the work was, but why she was passionate about the work and someone who was so open about the impact that this work can have. It definitely sparked something in me to want to go into responsible AI, and then she took the time to really think those things through. So, it's exciting because now she's in a position where I get to maybe work with her in the future and going from just a mentor to someone who I get to possibly work with it already feels like I've progressed so much in my journey and get to work with her now at Microsoft which is so fun. 

Anshu: 

It was so lovely to have you here. If folks want to know more about your work, where can they find more information? 

Tara: 

So, I actually this is going to sound so cheesy, but I actually finally put together like a little bio site. So, if you go to biosite/tarabyte. I have that that's also my Instagram handle @tarabyte101. I am again looking forward to connecting to more students and I am hoping to write more articles, but I have a couple of articles on medium too and trying to see what people are more curious to learn about whether that be the journey or whether that be about actual like generative and RAI so just wanting to be there as a resource for women to get into this field and get excited about it because there's so much to do and so much work to like possibly impact so. 

Anshu: 

I must admit TaraByte is very creative. 

Tara: 

Thank you! 

Anshu: 

It was so nice meeting you. Thanks so much for being here. This is Anshu. Thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Women of IU Podcast. Before we go, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and follow the Center on Instagram at @iuwomenintech. This podcast was recorded by the Center for Language Technology here at IU, so we want to give them a big thank you for their support and work. Then, stay tuned for the next episode of the Women of IU podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Center of Excellence for Women and Technology, also known as CEWIT. I am Anshu. Thanks for listening.