About Us

Dr. Jill Crisman is the vice president and Executive Director of the Digital Safety Research Institute (DSRI) at UL Research Institutes. Before joining UL Research Institutes, Dr. Crisman was the principal director for AI/ML Modernization in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)), the Chief Scientist for the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), and the Chief Scientist at Next Century Corp. At the JAIC and within OUSD(R&E), she worked to help modernize the Department of Defense for both agile software and AI systems. She also served as a Program Manager for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and was a founding faculty member of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. Throughout her career, she worked on numerous computer vision applications including robotic navigation, satellite image understanding, 3-D reconstruction from video, and tracking objects through multi-view surveillance video Dr. Crisman earned her PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University where, for her thesis, she created some of the first computer vision perception algorithms for self-driving cars.

Dr. Sean McGregor is an expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning.  Most recently, Dr. McGregor was the Founder of the Responsible AI Collaborative which is a leading index of AI experiences in the real world.  He was also a lead consultant for the XPRIZE Foundation where he audited the safety, ethics, and impacts of 150+ teams competing for the $5 million IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. 

Dr. McGregor brings to DSRI a passion for AI and digital system safety through auditing and testing. 

Denise is a seasoned communications and outreach expert with specialization in strategic planning, campaign development, engagement strategies, and execution of partnership marketing efforts. Key areas of communication include health and human safety, B2B sales and promotional messaging, and end-user communications.

Jesse Hostetler is a machine learning researcher and software engineer, currently leading development of the Dyff software platform for AI system testing. He joined DSRI in 2023, after spending the previous year developing Dyff as co-founder of AI testing startup Alignment Labs, Inc. Before that, he spent 5 years as a researcher at SRI International, working on a variety of basic and applied research projects in machine learning, reinforcement learning, and automated planning. Notable projects at SRI included: techniques for running neural networks on limited size, weight, and power devices; scalable cloud-based implementations of reinforcement learning agents; and AI agents that can adapt quickly to novel situations. Jesse received a Ph.D. in computer science from Oregon State University in 2017, where his research focused on automated planning algorithms that make better decisions with limited computing budgets.

Nicholas C. Judd, Ph.D., is a computational social scientist and lead research engineer with the Digital Safety Research Institute at the UL Research Institutes. Prior to joining ULRI, Dr. Judd led evaluation for what was at the time called Twitter’s Birdwatch, an innovative and experimental social networking feature that mobilizes augmented intelligence to mitigate problems caused by fraud, scams, and other inauthentic content. He took his Ph.D. in Sociology from The University of Chicago, where he studied collective decision-making in politics and government. Also a writer on the subject of technology and society, he has appeared (as author or expert source) in The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN.com, Yahoo News, and Vice, among others.

Kevin Paeth is a technical lead at DSRI where he leads development of the AI Incident Database and works on other public interest technology projects for building a safer digital ecosystem. Prior to working at DSRI, Kevin was a software engineer at Google in both the US and EU, conducted research on digital privacy at the Internet Policy Research Initiative at MIT, and consulted on AI policy at the OECD.

Brett Weir is an experienced technology professional specializing in cloud computing, DevOps, and release engineering. He founded BrettOps, a company dedicated to publishing guides, tools, and reference architectures in these domains. Brett has developed innovative projects such as the LameStation, an educational platform designed to teach programming to youth through hands-on game development. An open-source software advocate passionate about fostering collaborative development, his expertise also extends to music composition, reflecting a diverse skill set that combines technical proficiency with creative expression.