Description:

Topic: AI: Purpose, Governance, and Public Benefit

Speaker: Alondra Nelson
Harold F. Linder Chair and Professor,
School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study

In conversation with

Marwan M. Kraidy
Dean and CEO
Northwestern University in Qatar

Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she founded and leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Her research examines the social and political life of science and technology in society. Nelson is past president of the Social Science Research Council and previously served as professor of sociology at Columbia University, where she established the Division of Social Science and served as its first dean. Between 2021 to 2023, she was Deputy Assistant to the President and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In these roles, she led the development of landmark federal scientific integrity policies, advanced public-access initiatives for federally funded research, guided U.S. science and technology infrastructure strategy, and helped shape national approaches to responsible AI governance, including the landmark “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights." Named to Nature's annual global "Ten People Who Shaped Science" list and to the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in AI, she served as a presidentially appointed member of the US National Science Board. Dr. Nelson is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the National Academy of Medicine.

The Dean’s Global Forum at Northwestern University in Qatar is a series of lectures that features eminent leaders from academe, the media, the arts, and public affairs. In conversations with Dean and CEO Marwan M. Kraidy, distinguished speakers address enduring issues and pressing global matters and share insights from their career trajectory and life experiences.