Harvard Statistics Undergraduate Colloquium Series: Nathan Sanders

All Harvard affiliates are welcome to attend the talk!  Statistics Department members and statistics students can RSVP HERE for the lunch and/or dessert.

Nathan Sanders, VP of Data & AI at Harvard Business School Publishing and Co-author of Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship.

Data Science in Public Service: AI, Statistics, and the Future of Democracy

Technologists across disciplines—statisticians, software engineers, data scientists, and more—have always had a stake and a say in democratic governance, as far back as ancient Athens. But, in 2026, the rise of AI foundation models is accelerating technology’s importance as both a facilitator and subject of public administration, public policy, and politics. In Japan, a new political party formed by a young AI engineer is inventing a new way to engage people in politics using digital tools.

 In Switzerland, AI researchers at public universities are inventing a new paradigm for AI development, built as a public good rather than a corporate asset. Right here in Massachusetts, civic technologists are using AI to get all of us more involved in state policymaking. For all these innovations, the tools and principles of statistical reasoning are more critical than ever to optimize these systems for public benefit, ensure robust representation of diverse human needs and preferences, and to audit and mitigate potential bias. In this talk, I will share these case studies and others from our book, “Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship,” to give a perspective on how students studying statistics and data science today can make a difference in democracy and society going forward.