Zandi Eberstadt is a recipient of the Institute’s Ethics in AI Scholarship and an incoming Computer Science DPhil candidate (St. Hugh’s College), advised by Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Dr Max Van Kleek. She graduated with honours from Johns Hopkins University, where she studied cognitive science, served on the executive board of the Artificial Intelligence Society, and researched with the Human Language Technology Centre of Excellence (HLTCOE).
An AI policy scholar affiliated with the Mercatus Center, Zandi has held research fellowships at institutions including the University of Paris — where she conducted computational authorship attribution analyses for a French forensic case — and the National University of Singapore. She was a finalist for the Women in AI North America 2025 Rising Star Award as well as the winner of the Cosmos Institute’s inaugural essay contest on AI governance.
Her research interests include natural language processing, AI ethics, theoretical linguistics, and the relationship between human and machine cognition. Her doctoral work will focus on human-centred computing, with the goal of designing AI systems that measurably improve human wellbeing across cultural contexts.