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

 

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.

In conversation with

Marwan M. Kraidy

Dean and CEO
Northwestern University in Qatar

Event information

A reception will follow the event

DATE

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

TIME

1:00 - 2:30 p.m.

LOCATION

Events Hall
Northwestern Qatar