Matt O’Shaughnessy is a Senior Technologist in CDT’s AI Governance Lab, where his work bridges technical and policy perspectives on responsible AI.
Prior to joining CDT, he served as a Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where he worked on oversight and legislation related to technology and civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy. Previously, he served as a Senior Advisor at the Department of State’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, where he was the Department’s working-level lead on AI and human rights issues, working to center human rights considerations in U.S. policy, combat the use of AI for repression around the world, and coordinating the U.S. negotiation and signature of the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on AI and Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law. Previously, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Technology and International Affairs program, where his research focused on AI and democracy.
Matt’s engineering background focuses on the design and analysis of machine learning algorithms. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, an M.S. in Mathematics, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, all from Georgia Tech. His doctoral research involved machine learning explainability, causal inference, and high-dimensional statistics, as well as interdisciplinary research on the impacts of technology on society.
