Ruth Karen Nakigozi, ’27
Major: Informatics
Project title: “Using Community Oral Histories to Preserve Culture and Reduce Bias in Speech Technologies”
Ruth Karen Nakigozi wakes up every morning and knows she is helping people.
In her research, Nakigozi has spent the last year helping to archive the Sephardic Studies collection of recorded oral histories. Through this work, Nakigozi and her mentors are seeking to preserve cultural knowledge and improve speech recognition technologies for people with Ladino-accented English. Ladino is the language of Sephardic Jews.
Speech recognition technologies, like Siri on Apple products or artificial intelligence-generated transcript services, can sometimes struggle to pick up accented English speakers, Nakigozi said.
This can be annoying when trying to talk to something like Siri, but there are also compounding effects, she said. For example, some health care providers may use a transcription service to record notes during an appointment, but if that service doesn’t recognize their patient’s accent, their health could be at risk.
“This project is personal to me,” said Nakigozi, who has often seen how oral histories and shared stories keep cultures alive across generations. “I know I’m working to improve someone’s life every day.”
Technology, Nakigozi said, should only exist to make people’s lives better. “We should build technology to help people,” she said. “We should not build technology to harm people.”
Originally from Uganda, Nakigozi transferred to the UW from Edmonds College last year. Nakigozi, a Mary Gates Research Scholar, never thought she would be here after a year, presenting at the Undergraduate Research Symposium with research in informatics and computer science.
But now, research has deepened how she sees herself. “It’s allowed me to thrive,” she said. “I wake up with a purpose.”
After graduation next year, she hopes to go to graduate school and continue researching. Eventually, she wants to work with an international organization, like the United Nations.
“At the end of the day, I want to wake up and feel how I feel now — with a sense that I am contributing to society and leaving this world a much better place than I found it,” she said.
About the Symposium
This undergraduate research project was presented in the 29th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 15, 2026. The Symposium is one of several opportunities UW undergraduates have to engage in the transformative experiences research provides. It’s produced by the Office of Undergraduate Research and is one of the many ways the Office connects undergraduates to the UW’s research ecosystem.
Read the overview of the 2026 Symposium here.