Nidhi Kalra is director of the Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition, as well as a senior information scientist at RAND and a professor at the RAND School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on planning for long-range global risks and opportunities, including AI, biosecurity, autonomous vehicles, climate change mitigation and adaptation. She develops tools and methods that help people and organizations make better decisions amid deep uncertainty. She is lead author of long-range policy analyses such as “A U.S. Strategy to Prevent the Creation of Mirror Life” and "The Benefits and Costs of Reaching Net Zero Emissions in Latin America and the Caribbean."
She previously served as director of RAND's San Francisco Bay Area office. She also spearheaded RAND's autonomous vehicle policy work, including Driving to Safety: How Many Miles of Driving Would It Take to Demonstrate Autonomous Vehicle Reliability? (2016) and Autonomous Vehicle Technology: A Guide for Policymakers (2016). She has provided congressional testimony on autonomous vehicle policy and was also an appointed commissioner for California 100, a statewide initiative inspiring a vision and strategy for California’s next century.
Kalra served as vice president of the Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty and, in 2018, served as senior technology policy adviser to then–U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris. In 2013, as a senior decision scientist, she helped launch the World Bank's portfolio in robust decisionmaking.
She holds a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.
Ph.D. in robotics, Carnegie Mellon University; B.S. in computer science, Cornell University
Spanish; Hindi
