Nik Marda

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Hi there, I'm Nik! I'm the campaign manager at Jake Johnson for Congress, helping my high school math teacher flip Minnesota's first congressional district — the district I grew up in. I'm also on the adjunct faculty at Northwestern and Brown, and I serve on the steering committee of the Tech Talent Project.

I previously worked on tech policy in the Biden White House, where I was chief of staff of a 20-person tech policy team. There, I chaired the committee developing the U.S. Government's strategy on AI, co-organized Vice President Harris' meeting with AI CEOs, led public engagement on national AI priorities, spoke at key events, and helped write an executive order, federal guidance, and bill of rights on AI. After that, I was a technical lead for AI governance at Mozilla, where I helped make AI more open, public, and trustworthy. I've been put on a list of 100 government AI leaders around the world, and I've been quoted in The Washington Post, Bloomberg, TIME Magazine, and a few industry-specific outlets.

Before that, I supported the Biden-Harris Transition Team and Data & Society, and interned for Senator Amy Klobuchar and the National Security Commission on AI. I received an M.S. in computer science and a B.A. in political science from Stanford University, where I published research in human-computer interaction and was a Truman Scholar, Gardner Fellow, Coca-Cola Scholar, and Civic Digital Fellow.

I'm a big fan of long runs (like everyone else these days), national parks, good coffee, homemade chai, racket sports, martial arts, and clever puzzles. And I love meeting new folks — feel free to reach out at nik dot marda at northwestern dot edu.