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The Feingold Lecture series was established by a group of alumni in partnership with the Colin Powell School to honor the memory of Stanley Feingold, a beloved and gifted professor of political science who taught at CCNY for nearly four decades.

In this year's lecture, Alondra Nelson explores how policy can serve as a critical tool in building ethical frameworks for emerging technologies such as 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.

Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science and director of the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she has been a member of the faculty since 2019. Her work examines the relationship between science, technology, public policy, and civil, political, and social rights. 

She was previously a professor of sociology at Columbia University, where she established the Division of Social Science and served as its first Dean. Nelson served as the 14th president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council, an independent, international nonprofit organization, where she developed innovative programs that applied foundational research to pressing social challenges. She began her academic career on the faculty of Yale University, where she received the Poorvu Award for Interdisciplinary Teaching Excellence.

From 2021 to 2023, she held senior roles in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), including deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, acting director, and principal deputy director for science and society. Nelson was the architect of the White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, one of the first frameworks issued by a national government to set out rights-based principles for the design and use of automated systems. Its principles have since informed state legislation, international governance instruments, and institutional AI policies. 

In October 2023, Nelson was appointed to the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Advisory Body on AI, a 39-member group representing 33 countries, multiple regions, and a range of sectors. The body was tasked with analyzing key issues and advancing recommendations for the international governance of AI, culminating in the publication of the Governing AI for Humanity report in 2024.

Her contributions have been widely recognized. In 2022, Nature named Nelson to its annual list of “10 People Who Shaped Science,” citing her work in the White House on science, technology, and society. The following year, she was named to the inaugural TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence.