Lynne Parker

Dr. Lynne E. Parker, a native Tennessean, is Associate Vice Chancellor Emerita of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT). She previously served as Founding Director of the AI Tennessee Initiative—an initiative aimed at positioning the University and the state of Tennessee as a national and global leader in the data-intensive knowledge economy. Prior to that, she led national artificial intelligence (AI) policy efforts for four years (2018-2022) in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, serving as Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Founding Director of the National AI Initiative Office, and Assistant Director for AI. She also served as co-chair of the Congressionally-directed National AI Research Resource Task Force, which created an implementation plan released in January 2023 to democratize access to the computational and data infrastructure needed for AI research. She served for two years (2015-2016) at the National Science Foundation as Division Director for Information and Intelligent Systems. In these roles across three Administrations, she led the development of numerous landmark national AI policies bolstering research, governance, education and workforce training, international engagement, and the Federal use of AI.

Dr. Parker served on the UT computer science faculty for 23 years as an expert on distributed and intelligent robot systems, human-robot interaction, and AI. She also served in the Tickle College of Engineering at UT as Interim Dean and as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs. She previously worked for several years as a Distinguished Research and Development Staff Member and Group Leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researching multi-robot and human-robot systems. She serves as an advisor to non-profit think tanks, including the Center for New American Security (CNAS) and the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), as well as the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). She was recently appointed by Governor Bill Lee to Tennessee’s new AI Advisory Council, which is guiding awareness, education, and use of AI across Tennessee.

She has received numerous awards for research, teaching, and service, including the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Robotics and Automation Society’s George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation, and the Computing Research Association’s Distinguished Service Award. She is a Fellow of AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence), AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), and IEEE; and a Distinguished Member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). Dr. Parker earned a B.S. from Tennessee Technological University, an M.S. from the University of Tennessee, and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in computer science.