About

Suzana Ilić brings a wealth of knowledge in Applied Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, and over eight years of experience working with world-class research and engineering teams on large-scale NLU and machine learning systems Throughout her career, Suzana has played integral roles in the development of high-impact data and language technologies, including the Google Assistant, a cutting-edge biomedical research and knowledge platform for scientific discovery, BLOOM Large Language Models, and AI safety products for Large Language Models such as GPT-4o in Azure OpenAI.

Suzana led various science and engineering communities since 2015 including WuV, MLT, and BigScience, and is dedicated to creating inclusive environments for cross-functional and multi-disciplinary collaboration to advance the industry. With a focus on empowering individuals and organizations, she aims to facilitate the development and adoption of the next generation of machine learning systems.

Resume

2022-Present: Principal Product Manager, Microsoft
2021-2022: Technical Program Manager, HuggingFace
2020-2021: Technical Product Owner / Computational Linguist, Causaly
2019-2020: Visiting Scientist, RIKEN Center for Brain Science
2018-2019: Data Project Manager, Google Japan (contract)
2017-2018: Visiting PhD Researcher, National Institute of Informatics Japan
2015-2016: Program Manager, Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck

Nonprofit

2017-2023: Director, Machine Learning Tokyo

Education

BA in Linguistics, MA in Linguistics, PhD in Linguistics in progress [Google Scholar]

Visiting scholar / Continuous education

June-July 2022: Artificial Intelligence Strategy, UC Berkeley
November 2019: Full Stack Deep Learning Bootcamp, UC Berkeley
March 2019: International Research Center for Neurointelligence, The University of Tokyo
2016-2017: Rikkyo University, Tokyo (JASSO scholarship, JOINT scholarship)
May 2015: MIT, Cambridge

Speaking engagements

2024

Microsoft Build 2024, Seattle
Breakout Session: Safeguard your copilot with Azure AI

2023

NatWest Bank, London, UK
Responsible AI in Azure OpenAI

2022

Accelerate your Transformer journey
AIML workshop with AWS & Hugging Face

UCL Natural Language Processing Meetup, UCL AI Centre
Collaborative Machine Learning Research: Open Data, Models, Tools

European AI Week 2022
AI Week Panel: Cultural views on AI from Asia, Africa and North America

2021

GDG Cloud San Francisco 2021
Virtual, invited speaker, BigScience

IBM Research Zurich (internal)
Virtual, invited speaker, BigScience

GDR TAL 2021 – French National NLP Group
Virtual, invited speaker, BigScience
Conference theme: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Automatic Language Processing

2020

TWIML AI
Virtual, keynote interview

Weights and Biases, Gradient Dissent Podcast
Virtual, interview

CTDS Podcast
Virtual, interview

Tokyo Speaks Podcast, Tokyo, Japan
Interview

2019

Northeast Asia Women Techmakers Ambassadors Summit 2019
Google Tokyo, Japan

Rakuten Technology and Innovation Silver Award 2019, Tokyo, Japan
Acceptance speech

Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Deep Learning Bootcamp for researchers in earth-life sciences

Nikkei’s AI Summit AI/SUM, Tokyo, Japan
Data, Task and Algorithm Complexity in Deep Learning Projects

International Symposium on Computational Media Art 2019, University of Hong Kong
Creative AI: The synthesis of machine-generated poetry and virtual landscapes