Distinguished Speaker Series

Gašper Beguš leads efforts to develop techniques that help us better understand the inner workings of AI. In the Berkeley Biological and Artificial Language Lab he develops interpretable machine-learning models, including an “artificial baby” that learns speech from raw audio the way infants do. 

As Linguistics Lead of Project CETI, he applies similar tools to the click sequences of sperm whales and recently showed that whales produce sound patterns analogous to human vowels.  

Beguš works with industry through InterpretAI to make neural networks more transparent, and he serves as College Principal of Bowles Hall, leading UC Berkeley’s oldest residential college. 

His research has been covered by The Economist, National Geographic, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Atlantic, WIRED, Quanta, Harvard Magazine, Noema Magazine, and others.

Beguš regularly appears as an invited speaker in diverse venues such as NYU Stern School of Business, Centre Pompidou, the National Science Foundation, and the Santa Fe Institute. 

Síofra O'Leary is a former Judge and President of the European Court of Human Rights (2015 – 2024). While at the European Court she served as President of Section V, Vice-President and as the Court’s 17th President, the first woman to be elected to this position.

Prior to joining the European Court of Human Rights, she worked for almost two decades at the Court of Justice of the European Union in both judicial and administrative capacities.

In 2025-2026, Síofra O’Leary is attending New York University (NYU) as a Fellow of the Hauser Global Law School and the Remarque Institute.

She is also a Full Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin (UCD) and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and Instituto de Empresa (IE) in Madrid. She has served on the Editorial Board of the Common Market Law Review and is now a member of its Advisory Board and a Vice-President of the Irish Centre for European Law. She is also a member of the Society of Legal Scholars and is on the board of several national and European periodicals.

An Honorary Bencher of the Honorable Society of King’s Inns, Dublin and of Lincoln’s Inn, London, Síofra O’Leary is also an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge and a recipient of an LLD h.c. from the University of Edinburgh. In 2024, UCD conferred on her the Ulysses Medal in recognition of her legal work and European service. 

A graduate of University College Dublin (BCL) and a postgraduate of the European University Institute (PhD), Dr. O’Leary was previously the Assistant Director for the Centre of European Legal Studies at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University College Dublin, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cádiz, Spain and a Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London.

Síofra O’Leary is the author of two books entitled The Evolving Concept of Community Citizenship (Kluwer, 1996) and Employment Law at the European Court of Justice (Hart Publishing, 2001) and has published numerous articles in academic journals and legal monographs on the protection of fundamental rights in EU law and under the ECHR, EU employment law, the free movement of persons and services and EU citizenship generally.

Christine Webb is an Assistant Professor in New York University's Department of Environmental Studies, where she is part of the Animal Studies program. She is a broadly trained primatologist with expertise in social behavior, culture, cognition, and emotion. Her research also explores how contemporary norms and institutions shape scientific knowledge of other animals and the environment, with a critical emphasis on human exceptionalism.