Palina (Poli) Niamkova (Nemkova)

Dr. Poli Nemkova is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University's Data Science Institute and a member of the 2026 cohort of the DSI Postdoctoral Fellows Program, working with Professors SmarandaMuresan and Tamar Mitts. Her research sits at the intersection of natural language processing, computational social science, and AI for social good, with a focus on how AI systems reason under uncertainty, how geographic and knowledge disparities affect model performance, and how computational methods can support conflict forecasting and risk anticipation in high-stakes settings.

Prior to joining DSI, she served as a Data Science Fellow with the United Nations Development Programme. She also founded and leads Lab42, a research group focused on NLP and AI for social good.

Dr. Nemkova holds doctoral and master's degrees in Computer Science from the University of North Texas and a bachelor's degree in Economics from Belarusian State University.