Mazzolenis chosen for ethics fellowship

Maria Emilia Mazzolenis, a graduate student studying data science at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), is one of 14 students chosen for the 2023 Design & Technology Program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). Mazzolenis will spend two weeks this summer studying the conduct of design and technology professionals in Nazi-occupied Europe as a way to reflect on ethical issues facing today’s architects, engineers, designers and other technologists.

“By educating students about the causes of the Holocaust and the power of their chosen professions, FASPE seeks to instill a sense of professional responsibility for the ethical and moral choices that the fellows will make in their careers and in their professional relationships,” said David Goldman, FASPE’s founder and chairman.

Mazzolenis studied economics and psychology as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina, and has interned at companies such as Capital One, IBM at GE. Her research at SEAS includes collecting and analyzing data on decision-making in in vitro fertilization settings. She was also co-chair of the Graduate Advisory Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Leadership in Applied Computation this past semester.

Mary Gray, Faculty Associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and senior researcher at Microsoft, will co-lead the fellowship, along with University of Michigan associate professor Tawanna Dillahunt.

Now in its thirteenth year, FASPE uses an historical lens to engage graduate students in professional schools as well as early-stage practitioners in six fields: business, journalism, law, design and technology, medicine and seminary.