Dr. Nell (Eleanor) Watson
Nell (Eleanor) Watson, Ph.D., CITP, FBCS, FICS, FRSS, FRSA, FIAP, FIKE, FCMI, FLS, SMIEEE is the Founder of Cultural Peace, Chairman and Cofounder of EthicsNet, Artificial Intelligence and Ethics Faculty at Singularity University, Executive Consultant on philosophical matters for Apple, and the President of EURAIO, the European Responsible Artificial Intelligence Office. She is the Author of Taming the Machine: Ethically Harness the Power of AI.
Nell is an Engineering Technologist, Inspirational Speaker, and Business Leader. She is a Trusted Advisor, AI Wrangler, and Responsibility Advocate. Watch Agentic AI and our AI Future with Nell Watson.
Nell pioneers advancements in emerging technologies, particularly machine vision and AI ethics. She focuses on safeguarding human rights and integrating ethical principles, safety measures, and human-centric values into artificial intelligence systems. Watch Humanizing AI & Building Trust – Nell Watson – University:Future Festival 2024.
In 2024, Nell became an EU AI Act General-Purpose AI Code of Practice Expert for the European Commission as well as an EU AI Governance Fellow, where she is making sense of and commenting on EU AI Act regulations across diverse systems. She is leveraging these experiences to deepen her understanding of the EU policy landscape, refine diplomatic and cross-cultural communication skills, and contribute to shaping global tech dialogues in Brussels.
In 2024, Nell published her book Taming the Machine: Ethically Harness the Power of AI. She dives into the challenges of agentic AI models and the principles and human elements of this new breed of AI, uncovering how it will redefine business and society, including vital topics such as bias, privacy, and transparency — and, more importantly, how the enormous risks associated with these issues can be mitigated through carefully designed policy.
Watch Nell Watson’s Taming the Machine — Animated Short on AI. Listen to Taming the Machine, with Nell Watson and Empathy, Participation & The Future Of AI / Nell Watson.
As Cofounder and Chief of Innovation at QuantaCorp since 2015, she is a Machine Intelligence Research who helped to pioneer Deep Machine Vision, which enables fast and accurate body measurement from just two photos.
Formerly Poikos, which Nell cofounded back in 2011, now merged with BodiData, QuantaCorp enables fast and simple 3D body measurement from a front and side view using a 2D camera or 3D sensor. With an original design purpose of up-skilling sweatshop labor by enabling mass customization of clothing, Poikos technology revolutionized industries as diverse as e-commerce and health. This is enabled by her original patented technology, US8842906.
In 2016, Nell joined the IEEE’s Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and became Vice-Chair of the 7001 Working Group on Standards on Transparency of Autonomous Systems, where she is engineering credit score-like mechanisms to safeguard algorithmic trust.
She is the Chair of the Agentic AI Safety Experts Focus Group, Endocrine Disrupting Chemical Hazard Working Group, and Human or AI Interaction Transparency Working Group. Watch AI Agents Will Develop Their Own Distinct Culture — with Nell Watson. Listen to Machine Ethics, Artificial Intelligence & Humanity • Nell Watson, Priyanka Vergadia & Jørn Larsen.
Since 2022, she has been the President and Chair of the Supervisory Board at the European Responsible Artificial Intelligence Office (EURAIO), which advises organizations on implementing AI for Good.
At Apple since 2020, Nell has been consulting on machine ethics, machine intelligence, design, and philosophy of cognition, including contributing to world design, robot design, AI philosophy, science fiction forecasting, and script doctoring for the Apple/A24 science fiction dark comedy thriller series, Sunny.
In 2015, Nell accepted an invitation to join the Faculty at Singularity University as an adjunct within the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics track. She mostly lectures on Machine Intelligence, Human-Machine relations, and the Future of Human Society. In 2024, she became a Singularity Fellow for Ethics as well.
At CertNexus since 2020, Nell has been working to develop an original certification in ethics for practitioners of emerging technologies and comprehensive assessments of their learning.
In March 2020, she became a Member of the Coronavirus Task Force for the American Association for Precision Medicine (AAPM), where she serves to connect the worlds of business, tech, and medicine in search of breakthroughs against current and future pandemics.
She has also been the Principal at Endo Hazard since 2020, an initiative to help better warn and inform the public about chemicals that damage the body’s hormones, along with associated long-term risks to human and non-human species.
Nell has been a Contributing Researcher at The Institute for Ethical AI and Machine Learning since 2019. It is a UK-based research center that carries out world-class research into the 8 principles for responsible machine learning. She is an ethical AI member at the institute, where she contributes to the development of open-source tools and industry standards for responsible AI, including machine learning explainability, bias evaluation, and reproducibility.
She has chaired EthicsNet.org, a community teaching pro-social behaviors to machines, since 2016. She is building a community with the purpose of co-creating examples of nice behaviors (such as social norms) to help socialize AI.
Since 2019, Nell has been the Principal at Pacha, connecting a network of service providers to help enable the automated accounting of externalities (shifted costs), such as pollution.
In 2019, Nell Founded Cultural Peace, crafting Geneva Conventions-style rules for cultural conflict. Their principles aim to make and collect suggestions on making fair, just, and impartial ethical rules above conflict to preserve good faith and societal cohesion and to help support a future détente between many memetic tribes.
She joined the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) as a Guiding AI Principles Expert in 2020. U4SSC is a UN initiative coordinated by ITU, UNECE, and UN-Habitat and supported by CBD, ECLAC, FAO, UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, UN Environment, UNEP-FI, UNFCCC, UNIDO, UNOPS, UNU-EGOV, UN-Women, and WMO to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
As an Author at O’Reilly Media since 2016, Nell curates and presents original engineering courses on Deep Learning and AI topics. Read Understanding Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs).
She is a Foresight Project Forecaster for the Good Judgment Project funded by IARPA, a Faculty Mentor at the Center for Transhumanist Studies, ExO Consultant & Advisor, a Technology Advisory Panel Expert at the Information Commissioner’s Office, and a Subject Matter Expert at Observer Research Foundation.
Nell brings her extensive knowledge and expertise as a Keynote Speaker, represented by The Next Speaker. She is frequently asked to speak on topics such as emerging technology, societal disruptions from artificial intelligence, digital health, and the psychology of entrepreneurship.
It’s also important to her to support and mentor others along their own entrepreneurial journeys. She, therefore, regularly contributes her expertise and thinking to various mentees and socially beneficial organizations.
Nell has inspired audiences to work towards a brighter future at venues such as The World Bank, The United Nations General Assembly, and The Royal Society. Her other clients include NATO, MIT, Ericsson, Microsoft, SAP, The BBC, and many others.
She also contributes through guest columns for media outlets, including Fast Company and Big Think. Watch Gaslighting AI & Cyber Poltergeists | Nell Watson | TEDxUniversityofNicosia and Why it’s time for a digital social convention | Nell Watson | TEDxBari.
Nell has been an Academic Advisor for Ph.D. Students and Fulbright scholars. She has also been an Editorial and Peer Review Board Member for the Journal of Digital Medicine, Informatica Journal Superintelligence Special. Springer’s International Series on Transhumanism, Journal of Future Robot Life, The AI Ethics Journal, NeurIPS, and IEEE Computer.
Previously, Nell was a Board Member and Co-Secretary for Humanity Plus, Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society’s AI Initiative, Creative Consultant at Amazon Studios, Cognitive Scientist and Director of AI-Robotics at AIMY Robotics, and Dean of Cognitive Science at Exosphere HQ.
She was an ANA Avatar Judge at XPRIZE 2019, a $10 Million Prize Purse. The Avatar XPRIZE was awarded for creating a robotic avatar system to transport human presence to a remote location in real-time.
She has served as Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society and Senior Fellow to The Atlantic Council. In addition, she holds fellowships with the British Computing Society and Royal Statistical Society, and is listed as an Icon by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Nell earned her Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Gloucestershire in 2025 with her thesis An End-to-End Personal Fine-Tuning Framework for AI Value Alignment. Read Towards an End-to-End Personal Fine-Tuning Framework for AI Value Alignment.
She earned her Post Graduate Certificate in Research Methods in 2022 from the University of Gloucestershire, where she worked on Philosophy and Approaches to Research, Methodologies, and Methods.
Nell earned her Post Graduate Diploma in Strategic Business IT (Strategic Business Analysis, Information Systems) at NCC Education in 2009. She graduated from Singularity University in 2013.
In 2008, Nell discovered the joy of lecturing and inspiring others with a love of technology and applied engineering as she became a Post-Graduate Lecturer at Birmingham International College.
In 2002, Nell earned her Computer Technician certification and began her career in IT Support. She continued at Apple Recruitment Service until 2005 and as Web Administrator and Tech Support at B4U Limited in 2007.
In the following years, Nell took short-term roles in business and IT development in companies such as GRAFFITI4HIRE and Kajans Social Enterprise before changing her course, joining Singularity University, and starting her new journey.
Watch Nell Watson at AGI Conf ‘21 – Machines for Moral Enlightenment. Watch Behind the Science- Nell Watson, Eleanor Watson — looking into 2013 and beyond. The Poikos Inclusive Strategy. and Poikos Interview — IBM Smartcamp Europe.
Listen to Eleanor Watson of Poikos discuss MeasureCAM.
Read her detailed resume.
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