Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where she also founded and leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Widely known for her scholarship at the intersection of science, technology, and society, Nelson is the author of several award-winning books, including The Social Life of DNA, and her essays, reviews, and commentary have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Wired and Science. Between 2021 and 2023, she was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director and the first person to serve as principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She led the development of the White House “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” a cornerstone of President Biden’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. In recognition of Nelson’s impactful OSTP tenure, Nature named her to its global list of the 10 People Who Shaped Science.

In 2023, Nelson was included in the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in AI, and was nominated by the White House, and then appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to serve on the UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence. In 2024, Nelson was appointed by President Biden to the National Science Board, the body that establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation and advises Congress and the President. As a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Nelson has provided guidance on responsible science, technology, and innovation policy to local, state, and federal governments, multilateral and intergovernmental organizations, legislators, civil society institutions, and others.