Alondra Nelson, PhD

Alondra Nelson (NAM) is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and there leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Nelson’s research takes an innovative approach to the social sciences in generative dialogue with other fields. She connects these dimensions in a range of publications including Genetics and the Unsettled Past and The Social Life of DNA, as well as articles in Science, PLOS: Computational Biology, PLOS: Medicine, Genetics in Medicine, and the American Journal of
Public Health. Her commentary has been featured in national and international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Die Zeit, Le Monde, Foreign Policy, NPR, and CNN.

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, Dr. 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. She also served as an inaugural member of the Biden Cancer Cabinet, strengthened evidence-based policymaking, and galvanized a multisector strategy to advance equity and excellence in STEM, among other accomplishments. In recognition of Dr. Nelson’s public service tenure, Nature included her in the list of “Ten People Who Shaped Science” in 2022. In 2023, she was named to the inaugural TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was also appointed to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on AI.

Nelson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the recipient of honorary degrees from Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the City University of New York.