Dr Zena Assaad is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering at the Australian National University.
Dr Assaad is currently a fellow with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) leading research on the decommissioning of military AI systems.
She has held fellowships with the Australian Army Research Centre and Trusted Autonomous Systems. Her research explores the safety of critical and complex technologies in safety-critical domains, with a focus on systems engineering practices, and is currently focussed on topics related to autonomy and AI in military systems.
She is a former member of the expert advisory group for the global commission on responsible AI in the military domain (GC REAIM). She is currently an Ambassador for the Responsible by Design initiative of Article 36 Legal. She also serves on the independent advisory board on Legal Reviews as a technical expert and on the World Police Summit board of trustees. She was named one of the “Top 10 Women in AI” in the Asia-Pacific by AI Magazine, she received the “Tech Stewardship Award” from Vogue Australia.
She received the 2023 Women in AI Award for Defence, the 2023 Women to Watch in Emerging Aviation Technologies Global Award and was named one of the “100 Brilliant women in AI Ethics” for 2023. She is also the host of the Responsible Bytes podcast.
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