Widely known for her research at the intersection of science, technology, and society, Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study where she founded the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. She served as president and CEO of the international Social Science Research Council and on the faculty of Columbia University for a decade, including as their inaugural Dean of Social Science. Professor Nelson began her academic career on the faculty of Yale University.
Between 2021-2023, she was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). At OSTP, Professor Nelson spearheaded the development of the “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” which was both incorporated into President Biden’s historic executive order on artificial intelligence and enacted into policy for the federal government. Nature included Nelson in the list of “Ten People Who Shaped Science” in recognition of her public service tenure, stating “this social scientist made strides for equity, integrity and open access.” In 2023, she was named to the inaugural TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was appointed to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on AI.
Professor Nelson is the author of several award-winning books including, most recently, The Social Life of DNA. Auditing AI, her book co-authored with The Marquand House Collective, is forthcoming from MIT Press. Nelson is currently at work on a book about science and technology policy in the Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris administrations and research on platform society and AI governance.
Her commentary and interviews have been featured in a range of national and international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Die Zeit, Le Monde, Foreign Policy, NPR, and CNN.
Nelson holds honorary degrees from Amherst College, the City University of New York, Northeastern University, and Rutgers University. Her honors include the MIT Morison Prize, the Federation of American Scientists Public Service Award, the NAACP - Archewell Foundation Digital Civil Rights Award, the Morals and Machines Prize, and the Sage Publishing and Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Sage-CASBS) Award from Stanford University, and the inaugural Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Social Sciences and Technology from the Technical University of Munich for "pioneering work and outstanding and field-building contributions at the intersection of social sciences and technology."
She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Medicine.
Further information:
Institute for Advanced Studies - Professor Alondra Nelson's profile
