Rate My Professor Alondra Nelson

Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she has served on the faculty since 2019 and founded and directs the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Her research examines the intersections of science, technology, medicine, and social inequality, with particular attention to racial formation, social citizenship, and the implications of emerging technologies for civil, political, and social rights, including the political economy of AI and democratic science policy.

Nelson earned a BA in anthropology magna cum laude from the University of California, San Diego, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a PhD in American studies from New York University in 2003. She previously served as professor of sociology at Columbia University, where she was the inaugural Dean of Social Science, and as the 14th president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council. She began her academic career at Yale University. Between 2021 and 2023, she held positions in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as deputy assistant to the president and principal deputy director for science and society. Her books include Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination (2011) and The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome (2016). She has received numerous honors, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Medicine, as well as the Sage-CASBS Award and the MIT Morison Prize. Nelson has contributed to the International AI Safety Report and co-authored Auditing AI, published by MIT Press in 2026. She has held visiting positions at institutions including the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the London School of Economics.

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