“How to Govern the Future”

Denison University’s Laura C. Harris Series is pleased to welcome Alondra Nelson for a timely and vital talk, “How to Govern the Future.” In this lecture, Nelson explores how science and technology policy can serve as a critical tool in building ethical frameworks for emerging technologies — particularly artificial intelligence. Drawing on her experience at the highest levels of government, she makes the case for proactive, values-driven governance that safeguards rights and fosters public trust, while still enabling innovation. Her perspective is grounded in real-world policymaking, especially her leadership in crafting the Biden administration’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, a foundational effort to articulate democratic protections in the age of intelligent systems.

Nelson is uniquely qualified to speak to the intersection of technology, governance, and society. As former Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), she was the first Black woman to lead U.S. science and technology policy. During her tenure, she advanced open science, equitable STEM education, and policy efforts aimed at making AI and other technologies more accountable and transparent. Her leadership earned her recognition as one of Nature’s “Ten People Who Shaped Science in 2022” and inclusion in the inaugural TIME100 AI list.

A leading scholar of science, technology, and social life, Nelson is the author of The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome, which explores how genetic science has been used to address questions of historical injustice. She also wrote Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination, a groundbreaking study of the intersection between health, race, and activism. These works reflect her long-standing interest in how scientific and technological developments are shaped by, and in turn shape, social and political forces.

Now the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Nelson continues to advise national and international bodies on the societal dimensions of technology. Whether as a scholar, policymaker, or public intellectual, she brings a rare combination of analytical depth and practical experience to one of the most pressing questions of our time: how to responsibly govern the future.