The National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office (NAIIO)

Dr. Patrick Clowney is a White House Leadership Development Fellow leading key parts of NAIIO’s workforce development initiatives. Prior to joining NAIIO, Patrick served as the Deputy Chief Engineer at Federal Student Aid within the US Department of Education, where he was responsible for technical implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act and FUTURE Act. He has held positions of increasing responsibility in the U.S. Air Force, private sector at Amazon, and the Federal Government. Dr. Clowney is also combat veteran of the Global War on Terrorism. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Systems Engineering from The George Washington University.

Tess deBlanc-Knowles is a Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence, contributing to NAIIO’s efforts to maintain U.S. leadership in AI research and development and deepen international engagement. Prior to joining NAIIO, she served as a Director of Research and Analysis at the National Security Commission on AI, was Chief of Staff of the Atlantic Council, and spent time at U.S. Special Operations Command. She is on detail to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from the National Science Foundation.

Ami Fields-Meyer is Chief of Staff for the Science and Society team in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, helping to manage policy planning on issues of technology, equity, civil rights, and innovation. Fields-Meyer played a key role in the development of the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and contributes to the Biden Administration’s efforts to ensure the design, development, and deployment of emerging technologies protects the rights of the American public. Prior to joining the Administration, he served as a policy advisor and speechwriter to the Mayor of Los Angeles, a strategic consultant to national civil rights and advocacy organizations, and a political and campaign advisor.

Dr. Mark Latonero serves as Deputy Director for the National AI Initiative Office. He is on detail from the National Institute for Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce where, as senior policy advisor for AI, he worked on AI risk management, trustworthy and responsible AI, and international cooperation. As part of both OSTP’s Technology team and Science and Society team, he helps lead the work of advancing policy to address the sociotechnical implications of emerging technologies. Mark works at the intersection of technology, policy, and social impact, examining the risks and benefits of emerging technologies, particularly with regard to human rights and people in vulnerable situations. He has led field research in over a dozen countries on the implications of technology in human trafficking and humanitarian crises. He completed his PhD at the USC Annenberg School and was a postdoctoral research scholar at the London School of Economics.

Alexander “amac” Macgillivray is a Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy United States Chief Technology Officer. He held a similar post in the Obama-Biden Administration. Previously, he worked on the Biden-Harris Transition Team and co-founded the Trust & Safety Professional Association, Trust and Safety Foundation, and Alloy.us. He was a board member at Creative Commons and the Data & Society Research Institute, and an advisor to the Mozilla Tech Policy Fellows. Macgillivray served as Twitter’s general counsel, and as the company’s head of corporate development, public policy, communications, and trust and safety. He was also deputy general counsel at Google, where he created the product counsel team. He has served on the board of the Campaign for the Female Education (CAMFED) USA, was one of the early voices at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was certified as a first-grade teacher by the State of New Jersey.

Nik Marda is Chief of Staff for the Technology Team in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, helping to manage policy planning to ensure that technology and data benefits all Americans. Previously, he was a policy advisor in the NAIIO, leading key workstreams to ensure that the Federal Government leverages AI in alignment with democratic values and civil rights. Prior to joining OSTP and the NAIIO, he consulted on tech policy for the Data & Society Research Institute, worked on tech strategy for the Biden-Harris Transition Team and the Tech Talent Project, and received an M.S. in computer science from Stanford University.

Dr. Alan Mislove is Assistant Director for Data and Democracy at OSTP, contributing to the Administration’s work of driving policy to address the sociotechnical implications of emerging technologies. Dr. Mislove’s research is on algorithmic auditing: he develops methodologies to study the real-world systems that millions of people interact with every day, focusing on issues of algorithmic discrimination, fairness, and privacy. He is a Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University.

Deirdre K. Mulligan is Deputy United States Chief Technology Officer for Policy. She is a Professor at the School of Information at UC Berkeley, a co-Director of its Algorithmic Fairness & Opacity Group, and a faculty Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. Her research explores legal, organizational, and technical means of protecting values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and equity in emerging sociotechnical systems. She has written a book about privacy practices in large corporations in five countries, served on Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Science and Technology study group (ISAT), and served on the National Academy of Science’s Forum on Cyber Resilience. She previously chaired the board of the Center for Democracy and Technology, served on the initial board of the Partnership on AI, and was a founding member of the standing committee for the AI 100 project and the Global Network Initiative.

Olivia Zhu is a Presidential Innovation Fellow advising the NAIIO on the development and implementation of AI policy. She also works with the Office of Management and Budget in the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer on AI policy issues. Before joining government, Olivia worked on AI implementation in the tech industry. She managed and led cross-functional machine learning teams launching AI products to improve business decisions at Amazon, and previously worked as a research software development engineer and product manager on AI teams at Microsoft Research. Throughout her career, she has overseen 10+ launches of AI products, in applications ranging across sales, advertising, pricing, and search ranking.

Dr. Sorelle Friedler was the Assistant Director for Data and Democracy at OSTP. In this role, Dr. Friedler led the NAIIO’s work on trustworthy AI to ensure that AI is used in alignment with democratic values and civil rights. Dr. Friedler was on detail to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from Haverford College where she is an Associate Professor of Computer Science. Her research focuses on the fairness, accountability, and transparency of machine learning, with applications from criminal justice to materials discovery. She was previously a software engineer at Google and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Dr. Sam Jones was a Senior Policy Advisor, contributing to NAIIO’s efforts in interagency coordination, international engagement, and public outreach. He also contributed to policy work in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the areas of unmanned aerial systems, advanced air mobility, hypersonics, orbital debris, and PNT (position, navigation and timing). He is an Air Force acquisitions officer and earned a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Justin Lynch was a Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence, contributing to NAIIO’s efforts to advance AI education and workforce, and the practical application of AI. Prior to joining NAIIO, he served as a Director of Research and Analysis at the National Security Commission on AI. He served as an active-duty army officer before transitioning to the Army National Guard, and has served in multiple roles in the national security enterprise.

Dr. Alondra Nelson served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director for Science and Society in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she also performed the duties of the Director from February to October 2022. Dr. Nelson is most widely known for her research at the intersection of science, technology, medicine, and social inequality. Before joining the Biden Administration, Dr. Nelson was co-chair of the National Academy of Medicine Committee on Emerging Science, Technology, and Innovation and was a member of the National Academy of Engineering Committee on Responsible Computing Research. She served as a past president of the Social Science Research Council, an international research nonprofit, and was previously the inaugural Dean of Social Science at Columbia University. Dr. Nelson is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Dr. Lynne Parker was the Founding Director of the National AI Initiative Office from its inception in January 2021 until August 2022. She also served as the Deputy United States Chief Technology Officer and the Assistant Director of Artificial Intelligence at OSTP. She served in OSTP from 2018-2022 and played an integral role in numerous landmark national AI policies. Dr. Parker was on assignment to OSTP from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), where she has since returned to the role of associate vice chancellor and director of the new AI Tennessee Initiative. She served as National Science Foundation’s Division Director for Information and Intelligent Systems in 2015-2016, and as a Distinguished Research and Development Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory prior to joining UTK. She earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a Fellow of AAAI, AAAS, IEEE, and a Distinguished Member of ACM.

Dr. Suresh Venkatasubramanian was the Assistant Director for Science and Justice at OSTP. In this role, Dr. Venkatasubramanian led the NAIIO’s work on trustworthy AI to ensure that AI is used in alignment with democratic values and civil rights, as well as working on research priorities pertaining to online platforms. Dr. Venkatasubramanian was on detail to OSTP from Brown University, where he is a Professor of Computer Science and Data Science, Deputy Director of the Data Science Initiative, and founding Director of the Center for Tech Responsibility. His research studies many dimensions of the societal impact of automation, including concerns around fairness, accountability and transparency and policy objectives to ensure the responsible deployment of data-driven technology. Previously to Brown, he worked at the University of Utah and at AT&T Labs – Research. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University.

Jessica Young was a Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence, contributing to NAIIO’s efforts in the responsible development and use of trustworthy AI. Prior to joining NAIIO, she served as a Director of Research and Analysis at the National Security Commission on AI, where she led the Responsible AI line of effort. She earned a MSc. in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University. Her experience with the public sector, tech industry, and non-governmental organizations spans six continents.