Susan Rice, Michael Kratsios Join Stanford HAI as Distinguished Visiting Fellows

Stanford HAI is pleased to announce that Ambassador Susan E. Rice and the Hon. Michael J.K. Kratsios have joined the institute as Distinguished Visiting Fellows. 

Rice served as Domestic Policy Advisor to President Joe Biden. Previously, she was President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of the Cabinet. During the Clinton Administration, Rice was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, as well as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, and Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping at the National Security Council. Rice is the only person to have served both as Domestic Policy Advisor and National Security Advisor.

Kratsios served as President Donald J. Trump’s Chief Technology Officer of the United States at the White House and also as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at the Pentagon. He is responsible for architecting the country’s first National AI Strategy, the American AI Initiative, and oversaw the establishment of the National AI Initiative Office at the White House. He is currently the Managing Director of Scale AI.

At Stanford HAI, Rice and Kratsios will contribute to the institute’s research efforts, exploring the global implications of this technology, its effects on global politics, and understanding the key fundamentals of human-centered AI.

“Susan and Michael bring such a deep background of creating and setting policy at a national and international level,” said Stanford HAI Co-director Fei-Fei Li. “Their insights combined with our faculty expertise will really help us think through the future of AI’s impact on governance, and how we can most effectively regulate this societal changing technology." 

“We are beyond thrilled to have these esteemed policymakers at HAI, not only to add to the important scholarship around AI policy, but also to work with our students and faculty to better understand the geopolitical ramifications of this technology,” said Russell Wald, HAI deputy director.

Rice has also been named the new Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.