Advises, speaks, and writes on artificial intelligence and the institutions adopting it.
Two decades on the AI frontier as researcher, program builder, and institutional leader, in the academy and at the National Science Foundation.
Selected advisory and federal service
Jun 2026
External reviewer, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research, White-Hat Portfolio Review of AI Infrastructure, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
2024–present
Member, working groups and panels of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on AI, biosecurity, and the life sciences.
2025–present
Member, Advisory Committee, U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute.
2025–present
Founding Member, Center for Digital Education Higher Education AI Council.
2024–present
Member, External Advisory Board, NSF Center for Computer-Assisted Synthesis.
2024
Member, NIST AI Safety Institute Consortium, Risk Management Working Group taskforces.
Full list in the academic CV.
Selected keynotes and invited talks
Jun 2026
Featured Speaker, Inside Higher Ed US AI Summit, University at Buffalo.
Jun 2026
Keynote, Humanities Faculty Leadership Program, Swarthmore College.
May 2026
Invited talk, AI Days, University of Texas at Dallas.
Apr 2026
Organizer, Mason AI Day, Fuse at Mason Square, Arlington.
Dec 2025
Panelist, “What It Takes to Lead in the AI Era,” The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Sep 2025
Organizer, Converge AI Forum, AI-in-Gov Council, Arlington.
Jul 2025
Invited presentation, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop on transformative science and technology for the Department of Defense.
Jun 2025
Invited webinar, International Federation of Engineering Education Societies and Global Engineering Deans Council.
Apr 2025
Invited talk, Salishan Conference on High Speed Computing.
Apr 2025
Invited talk, AI Expo, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Full list in the academic CV.
Books
Forthcoming
AI for Government
Documents how governments are adopting AI in real time, through live surveys, interviews, and ongoing analysis. With Rich Heimann and I-Sah Hsieh.
Under review
A second book on AI literacy. Details forthcoming.
Selected essays
May 2026
Computing after code
Apr 2026
What the university is now for
Mar 2026
The invisible economy
Feb 2026
The agents at the gates
Jan 2026
The palace still stands
More writing at amardashehu.substack.com.
About
Amarda Shehu is the inaugural Vice President and Chief AI Officer at George Mason University and Associate Dean for Research in its College of Engineering and Computing, where she is also Professor of Computer Science. She leads Mason's institution-wide AI strategy and has launched programs that bring AI literacy and access to more than 40,000 students and the faculty and staff serving them. She has spent two decades on the AI frontier as a researcher and program builder, in the academy and at the National Science Foundation, where she served as a Program Director from 2019 to 2022.
She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a member of the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Her research is interdisciplinary, spanning foundational AI and AI-enabled discovery across the sciences, engineering, and the social sciences, with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. She advises on AI innovation, strategy, and governance across universities, governments, and the private sector, in the United States and abroad.
Full biography and publications: academic CV.
Contact
For speaking, advisory, editorial, and press inquiries.