Jelicia Ross is a technologist, writer, and climate activist. She currently leads a Data, Automation and Products team at Pinterest, where she also founded the company’s Sustainable AI Working Group, to transform the AI-and-climate conversation from something to “doomscroll” about into balanced, science-backed perspectives, practical ways to use AI more sustainably, and methods for improving transparency on its impact as AI adoption accelerates.
She got her start in data at Deloitte Consulting, and a few projects in, found her footing in People Analytics, a thread that has run through more than a decade of roles since at Deloitte, Dell Technologies, and now Pinterest. She’s found the space fascinating, taking on projects that range from forecasting and predictive analytics to support workforce decisions to weirder experiments, like borrowing supply chain optimization methods to rethink how HR data gets used.
Moving beyond the laptop screen, she has taken sabbaticals from her corporate career to work on regenerative farms and climate projects with Patchworks City Farms, Climate Farm School, and Terra.do, among others. She credits these experiences with being a key source of many of her experimental ideas and research surrounding AI, environmental science, and systems thinking.
When not in either of those spaces, she can be found writing and performing sketch comedy, standup, and improv with her incredibly talented friends on the east coast. She’s driven by one thing across all of her passions: finding better ways to connect people, whether that’s through data, soil, or a punchline that (hopefully) lands.
