Terah Lyons is an internationally recognized leader in technology policy and expert on the governance, responsible use, and geopolitics of AI.

Terah has spent her career working across sectors to align decisions made about AI technology development and deployment by governments and private sector actors with the long-term health of society. She is an expert in AI/ML and data products, and emerging technology policy and governance.

In the Obama Administration, Terah oversaw policy on AI and emerging technologies serving as Policy Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she also advised on issues related to the innovation economy, national security, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the technology industry. She co-directed the White House’s Future of Artificial Intelligence Initiative, which facilitated stakeholders in the public and private domains to frame the first domestic policy strategy on machine intelligence, and inspired similar policy strategy development in governments around the world. 

Terah was the Founding Executive Director and CEO of the Partnership on AI (PAI), a global multi-stakeholder non-profit initiative focused on advancing the benefits and addressing the challenges of artificial intelligence co-founded by a coalition of technology companies (Apple, Amazon, IBM, Google/DeepMind, Meta, and Microsoft), civil society organizations, and academic institutions in 2016. The organization’s work is leveraged by dozens of leading technology companies, governments, civil society, and research organizations globally today.

More recently, Terah was an Executive In Residence at Zetta Venture Partners working with early-stage founders building AI technology companies in critical new domains like climate science, materials science, and synthetic biology. She continues to advise companies, governments and global leaders, universities, and nonprofit organizations on responsible development and use of AI, technology policy, and related topics in global affairs, engagement, and strategy. In 2019, Terah was named one of UNESCO’s “Remarkable Women Leaders in Technology.” She regularly conducts public outreach on AI governance issues, has testified before leadership bodies including the U.S. Congress and the United Nations, and participated in and helped facilitate several international diplomatic dialogues on science and technology policy and AI governance. 

Terah is an Affiliate Fellow at Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute, where she serves on the Steering Committee of the AI Index and as a Study Panel Member of Stanford’s One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100). She is an Advisor to the Administrative Conference of the United States on the use of artificial intelligence in Federal agencies, and serves on the boards of several nonprofits, including Sound Future, Hedgebrook, and the Tech Talent Project. 

Previously, she was a Mozilla Foundation Technology Policy Fellow and a Fellow with the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Terah is a NOLS-certified Wilderness First Responder and loves spending time in the great outdoors in her spare time. She is a graduate of Harvard University.