One of 40 members of the first global scientific panel on artificial intelligence, Rita Orji has spent her career asking who technology is for.

In February 2026, the United Nations General Assembly appointed 40 scientists to a body with a new and unusual job: to assess artificial intelligence for all member states, regardless of their technological capacity. Among them was Prof. Rita Orji, Professor of Computer Science at Dalhousie University and Canada Research Chair in Persuasive Technology. She was one of only two Canadians on the panel, alongside Yoshua Bengio, the Turing Award laureate and founder of Mila.

The appointment was not the first recognition of her work, and it was not the last. In October 2026 the International Science Council named her a Fellow, the highest honour the council confers on an individual scientist. Her selection came jointly from the African Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Taken together, the two honours describe a researcher whose work spans Canada, Africa and the international policy community.

From Nigeria to Canada

Prof. Orji is originally from Nigeria. According to a 2019 University of Saskatchewan alumni profile, she was born and raised by a parent who had no formal education, and her family lived on a tight budget. She graduated in computer science from Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka with First Class Honours, completed a master’s degree in Turkey, and then decided to move to Canada. She arrived at the University of Saskatchewan in 2010 and earned her PhD in computer science in 2014.

She joined Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Computer Science and was named a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Persuasive Technology in 2020. She now directs the Persuasive Computing Lab, whose stated purpose is to develop technologies that empower people, improve lives and help solve societal problems.

Designing for the People Technology Misses

Persuasive technology is the design of apps, games and systems that try to change what people do, whether that means walking more, managing stress or avoiding misinformation. Much of the field assumes one user. Orji’s work asks whether that assumption holds. Her research has examined how culture and age change the effect of persuasion. A 2017 study on social influence in persuasive technology, for example, examined how both factors affect susceptibility to social influence in persuasive technology.

Her studies also test which strategies work for which people. One line of work, including a 2014 paper on the efficacy of persuasive strategies for different gamer types in serious games for health, asks whether a health game should adapt its appeals to the kind of player using it. Other work reviews the behaviour change strategies in mental health apps and stress management apps, and analyses what users say about mental health apps in their own reviews. Her most-cited paper, a 2018 review titled “Persuasive technology for health and wellness: State-of-the-art and emerging trends,” has been cited 688 times.

Her research has been recognized with significant funding. In 2024 she received the Arthur B. McDonald Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, one of six fellowships awarded across Canada that year. The fellowship supported a project on AI-driven adaptive persuasive interventions for health and wellness and allowed her to step back from teaching for two years to pursue it. Her lab was also one of 17 Canadian research labs to receive funding from Meta for work on social technologies.

Her Google Scholar profile records 13,346 citations in total, an h-index of 56 and an i10-index of 193. Since 2021 alone her work has been cited 10,268 times.

A Seat at the Table on AI

Her appointment to the UN panel followed her work on the reliability of artificial intelligence. Her 2025 paper “On the reliability of Large Language Models to misinformed and demographically informed prompts” examines how language models respond to prompts that carry misinformation or demographic context, a question that matters when such systems are used to inform the public.

The panel was established by General Assembly resolution in August 2025 under the Global Digital Compact. It is the first global scientific body dedicated to AI, and its members were chosen from more than 2,600 applicants across more than 140 countries after independent review by the International Telecommunication Union, the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and UNESCO. Members serve a three-year term in a personal capacity. Its mandate is to produce evidence-based assessments of the opportunities, risks and societal impacts of AI for the Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

Orji chairs one of the panel’s working groups, which focuses on human rights, information and democracy. The African Academy of Sciences, which nominated her for the ISC Fellowship and celebrated her UN appointment, said that her presence helps ensure African perspectives and priorities are represented in international AI policy.

Recognition From Global Science

Her career has been marked by a steady sequence of honours. She received the Dalhousie President’s Research Excellence Award in 2019 and the Early Career Researcher Award from Graphics Interface in 2021, which made her the first Atlantic Canada faculty member to receive it. In 2020 she was inducted into the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2022 she was admitted to the Global Young Academy, whose 2022 cohort included members from 24 countries. In 2025 she became a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. The same university alumni listing also records her 2021 appearances on the Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women and Top 100 Leading Nigerian Women lists and the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards.

In October 2026, the International Science Council named her a Fellow. The council describes the honour as recognizing those who promote science as a global public good. Dalhousie’s announcement describes her work as helping to shape global discussions on responsible AI governance.

What Comes Next

Prof. Orji’s career suggests that the future of artificial intelligence cannot be settled by computational power alone. It depends on whose needs shape the design, whose evidence informs policy and whose voices enter the rooms where decisions are made. A researcher raised by a parent without formal schooling now sits on the first global scientific panel on AI, and her work is a case for including the people technology has long overlooked.

Sources for Fact-Checking

Dalhousie University, “Dal researcher Dr. Rita Orji named Fellow of the International Science Council,” 22 October 2026. https://www.dal.ca/news/2026/10/22/rita-orji-international-science-council.html

Dalhousie University, “Dal researcher appointed to UN’s new scientific panel on artificial intelligence,” 13 February 2026. https://www.dal.ca/news/2026/02/13/dr–rita-orji-appointed-to-un-s-new-scientific-panel-on-artifici.html

African Academy of Sciences, “AAS Fellow Dr Rita Orji Appointed to UN Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.” https://www.aasciences.africa/news/aas-fellow-dr-rita-orji-appointed-to-un-scientific-panel-on-artificial-intelligence

Institute for Development Research (IDRC), “AI for Development research partners appointed to the UN’s new expert panel on artificial intelligence,” 2026. https://idrc-crdi.ca/en/news/ai-development-research-partners-appointed-uns-new-expert-panel-artificial-intelligence

Dalhousie University, “Dr. Rita Orji wins Arthur B. McDonald Fellowship,” 7 November 2024. https://www.dal.ca/news/2024/11/07/rita-orji-arthur-b-macdonald-award-2024.html

Dalhousie University, “Computer science researcher becomes Dalhousie’s second Global Young Academy member,” 4 March 2022. https://www.dal.ca/news/2022/03/04/rita-orji-global-young-academy.html

Dalhousie University, “Dal’s Rita Orji honoured with top Canadian computer science research award,” 5 April 2021. https://www.dal.ca/news/2021/04/05/dal-s-rita-orji-honoured-with-top-canadian-computer-science-rese.html

Dalhousie University, “An investment in research excellence: Get to know Dal’s five new Canada Research Chairs,” 17 December 2020. https://www.dal.ca/faculty/computerscience/news-events/news/2020/12/17/an_investment_in_research_excellence__get_to_know_dal_s_five_new_canada_research_chairs.html

Dalhousie University, “Royal recognition: Get to know the five Dal researchers newly appointed to the Royal Society of Canada,” 8 September 2020. https://www.dal.ca/news/2020/09/08/get-to-know-the-five-world-class-dal-researchers-just-appointed-.html

University of Saskatchewan, “Breaking down barriers,” alumni profile, 2019. https://alumni.usask.ca/news/2019/breaking-down-barriers.php

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Department of Computer Science, “Computer Science Alumni.” https://physicalsciences.unizik.edu.ng/departments/computer-science/computer-science-alumni/

ACENET, “Persuasive Computing for Social Good.” https://www.ace-net.ca/showcase-tag/social-sciences/ Google Scholar profile of Rita Orji, citation metrics and most-cited publications, access