UL Research Institutes Announces Dr. Jill Crisman, Leader With 30+ Years of AI Experience, as Executive Director, Digital Safety Research Institute

Crisman to lead DSRI in fulfilling its mission to help ensure digital intelligence safety delivers the greatest possible benefits for human safety and well-being

Northbrook, Ill. (Sept. 7, 2022) — UL Research Institutes today announced that Dr. Jill Crisman has been named to lead the organization’s Digital Safety Research Institute (DSRI).

DSRI, launched in February 2022 as a new UL research institute, works to thoroughly understand and mitigate the risks that big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and autonomous systems may pose. As executive director, Crisman will lead the team’s development of new frameworks to help ensure that systems that use digital intelligence are built with safety, ethics, and equity in mind.

“I look forward to working with a preeminent organization focused on safety science, leading a team that is applying trusted, independent research into the safety of emerging digital technologies,” Crisman said. “Cybersecurity, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and digital privacy are embedded into a broader digital universe that will continue to transform our world. While the potential is limitless, we must try to ensure that these new technologies, as part of a digital ecosystem, are deployed safely — and that’s where DSRI comes in to serve the broader public good.”

Crisman’s appointment is part of the UL enterprise’s ongoing expansion and $1.8 billion commitment to tackle some of the most complex and urgent safety challenges the world now faces. 

“Digital intelligence is poised to unleash a new technological revolution,” said Terrence R. Brady, president and CEO of UL Research Institutes. “We’re thrilled to have Dr. Crisman at DSRI’s helm as we work to create new frameworks for the safe, secure, and equitable development of the digital systems reshaping our world. Dr. Crisman’s wealth of experience and deep understanding of automated technologies will help us sense pivotal risks and build safety into these emerging technologies.”

With a career that spans government, the private sector and academia, Crisman joins UL Research Institutes from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. There, she served as principal director for artificial intelligence and machine learning, responsible for developing the department’s AI and machine learning research and development road map. Prior to this role, she served as chief scientist at the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Earlier in her career, Crisman served as chief scientist at Next Century Corp.; as a senior program manager for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity; and as senior research scientist at Virginia-based Science Applications International Corp., where she received the organization’s Technical Excellence Award. She also served as a founding faculty member at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and an associate professor at Northeastern University in Massachusetts.

Crisman earned a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. She is based in the Washington, D.C. area. 

About UL Research Institutes

UL Research Institutes is a leading independent safety science organization with global reach. Dedicated to exploring vital questions related to public safety, we sense and act on risks to humanity and our planet.

Since 1894, our trusted research has engaged the ingenuity of top minds across scientific disciplines to engineer a safer and more sustainable world. Science builds the knowledge required to mitigate increasingly urgent safety problems like environmental and chemical pollution or artificial intelligence inequities — and our rigorous, objective investigations uncover that knowledge.

In collaboration with a global network of scientists and safety professionals, we define the safe and sustainable use of things ranging from legacy materials to new and emerging technologies. Our discoveries support the development of practical standards and policies by UL Standards & Engagement. Together, we are advancing safety science for the greater good.

Contact

Mimi Bhattacharyya
Director of Strategic Communications
mimi.bhattacharyya@ul.org