Alondra Nelson

Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she founded and directs the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. 

A sociologist of science, technology, and social inequality, she previously served as the inaugural Dean of Social Science at Columbia University and as the 14th president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council. 

Between 2021 and 2023, she was deputy assistant to President Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she led the development of the “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.” She served on the UN High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence and as a Senior Adviser to the International AI Safety Report. 

Nature named her one of the “Ten People Who Shaped Science” and TIME included her on its inaugural list of the most influential people in AI. Her books include The Social Life of DNA and Auditing AI (co-authored with the Marquand House Collective). 

She serves on the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Mozilla. She is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Medicine.