Shirley Ann Jackson is President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior to her current role, Jackson was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 to serve as Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Jackson became the first woman and first African American to hold that position.

In 2014, Jackson was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as Co-Chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Jackson is a recipient of the 2015 National Medal of Science and is a member of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board.

Jackson is Vice Chair of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, and serves on the Boards of the World Economic Forum USA, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Brookings Institution.