Jason Gaverick Matheny

Jason Matheny
President and CEO of RAND Corporation
Incumbent
Assumed office
July 5, 2022
Preceded byMichael D. Rich
Personal details
Born
Jason Gaverick Matheny
EducationUniversity of Chicago (BA)
Duke University (MBA)
Johns Hopkins University (MPH, PhD)
Scientific career
ThesisThe Economics of Pharmaceutical Development: Costs, Risks, and Incentives (2013)
Doctoral advisorBradley Herring

Jason Gaverick Matheny is a United States national security expert serving as president and CEO of the RAND Corporation since July 2022.[1] He was previously a senior appointee in the Biden administration from March 2021 to June 2022. He served as deputy assistant to the president for technology and national security, deputy director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and coordinator for technology and national security at the White House National Security Council.[2][3]

Matheny previously was the founding director of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, to which he was appointed by Congress in 2018.[4][5] Previously he was an assistant director of national intelligence, and director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).[4] Matheny has had ties with the Effective Altruist movement.[6]

Early life and education

Matheny grew up in Louisville, Kentucky.[7] He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1996, where he majored in art history.[8][9] He obtained an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in 2003,[10][11] and a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2004.[8] He spent six months in India evaluating the efficacy of the HIV-prevention Avahan project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[12][8] He received a PhD in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University.[10] His doctoral dissertation is titled: "The Economics of Pharmaceutical Development: Costs, Risks, and Incentives".[13]

Career

Matheny joined IARPA in 2009, working as a program manager for the Aggregative Contingent Estimation Program and the Open Source Indicators Program.[13][14][15][16][17] After serving as a program manager, he served as an associate office director, office director, and director.[18]

Prior to joining IARPA, Matheny was director of research at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, where his work focused on existential risks.[19]

He has also held positions at the World Bank, the Applied Physics Laboratory, the Center for Biosecurity, the Seva Foundation, and Princeton University, and has co-chaired the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, which authored the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan, released by the White House in October 2016.[20][18][8]

Besides his work on emerging technologies and catastrophic risks, Matheny is recognized for having popularized the concept of cultured meat, after co-authoring a paper[21] on cultured meat production in the early 2000s and founding New Harvest, the world's first non-profit organization dedicated to supporting in vitro meat research.[22]

Recognition

Matheny's work was called one of the "ideas of the year" by The New York Times, and he was named one of Foreign Policy's top 100 global thinkers.[23]

Matheny is a member of the National Academies' Intelligence Community Studies Board,[24] the National Academies' Committee on Science and Innovation Leadership for the 21st Century,[25] the Department of Commerce Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee,[26] the Department of Energy AIML Working Group,[27] the AAAS Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy,[28] the Nuclear Threat Initiative Science and Technology Advisory Group,[29] the Center for a New American Security Task Force on AI and National Security,[30] the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Encryption Working Group,[31] and is a Non-Resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.[32] He is a recipient of the Intelligence Community's Award for Individual Achievement in Science and Technology, the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.[18]

References

  1. ^ Monica, 1776 Main Street Santa; California 90401-3208. "Jason Matheny Named President and CEO of RAND Corporation". www.rand.org. Retrieved June 7, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "Jason Matheny to serve Biden White House in national security and tech roles". FedScoop. March 9, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  3. ^ Dille, Grace (March 11, 2021). "Former IARPA Head Lands Three New White House Tech Roles". www.meritalk.com. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Jason Matheny". Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  5. ^ "Daily Digest" (PDF). congress.gov. November 14, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  6. ^ Centre for Effective Altruism (June 18, 2017). Effective altruism in government | Jason Matheny. Retrieved June 12, 2024 – via YouTube.
  7. ^ "The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky on June 10, 1992 · Page 53". June 10, 1992.
  8. ^ a b c d Schonwald, Josh. "Future fillet". University of Chicago Magazine. Archived from the original on October 16, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2018.
  9. ^ "Alumni". Department of Art History, Division of the Humanities, The University of Chicago. Retrieved March 16, 2018. 1995-96 ... Jason Matheny
  10. ^ a b Jason Matheny interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the TWiT.tv network
  11. ^ "Happy Birthday!". Fuqua School of Business. Archived from the original on September 29, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2018. Jason Gaverick Matheny MBA '03 Director of IARPA, Washington, DC.
  12. ^ Paul Shapiro (January 2, 2018). Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World. Gallery Books. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-5011-8910-4.
  13. ^ a b Matheny, Jason Gaverick (September 2013). "The Economics of Pharmaceutical Development: Costs, Risks, and Incentives" (PDF). Johns Hopkins University.
  14. ^ Bleicher, Ariel (August 9, 2017). "Demystifying the Black Box That Is AI". Scientific American. Archived from the original on August 9, 2017. When Jason Matheny joined the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) as a program manager in 2009, he made a habit of chatting to the organization's research analysts.
  15. ^ Marc Prensky (August 7, 2012). Brain Gain: Technology and the Quest for Digital Wisdom. St. Martin's Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-1-137-09317-2. The ACE program manager is Jason Matheny
  16. ^ Hamilton, Keegan (January 8, 2015). "US Agencies Are Using the Web to Pick Our Brains". Washingtonian. The problem, says Jason Matheny, who started a program at IARPA called Aggregative Contingent Estimation, is that 'people who have the traditional markers of expertise are typically not the most accurate forecasters.'
  17. ^ Matheny, Jason Gaverick (July 2, 2011). "IARPA Open Source Indicators (OSI) Program: Proposers' Day Conference, August 3, 2011". Society for Judgment and Decision Making. Archived from the original on March 17, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2018.
  18. ^ a b c "Jason Matheny, IARPA" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 18, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  19. ^ Jason G. Matheny (2007): "Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction", Risk Analysis 27(5): 1335-1344. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2007.00960.x/abstract
  20. ^ "National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan" (PDF). Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  21. ^ Edelman, PD (May 3, 2005). "Commentary: In Vitro-Cultured Meat Productionsystem". Tissue Engineering. 11 (5–6): 659–662. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.179.588. doi:10.1089/ten.2005.11.659. PMID 15998207. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
  22. ^ Schonwald, Josh (May 2009). "Future Fillet". The University of Chicago Magazine.
  23. ^ "Global Thinkers 2017". Foreign Policy. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  24. ^ "About the Intelligence Community Studies Board". Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  25. ^ "Science and Innovation Leadership for the 21st Century: Challenges and Strategic Implications for the United States". The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  26. ^ "Department of Commerce Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee" (PDF). American Institute of Physics. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  27. ^ "Preliminary findings of the SEAB to Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette regarding the Department of Energy and Artificial Intelligence" (PDF). Department of Energy. March 12, 2020. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  28. ^ "About the Intelligence Community Studies Board". The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  29. ^ "Board & Advisors". Nuclear Threat Initiative. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  30. ^ "Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security". Center for a New American Security. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  31. ^ "Encryption Working Group". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  32. ^ "Affiliated Advisers and Experts (Non-Resident)". Center for Strategic & International Studies. Retrieved June 7, 2020.