Knowledge, Skills, and Awareness Subcommittee

The AI Council Subcommittee on Knowledge, Skills, and Awareness (KSA) is tasked with implementing an AI training strategy and recommendations outlined by the Presidential Working Group’s Final Report, issued in October of 2021, and other initiatives as determined by the AI Council in response to the rapidly evolving AI landscape. The KSA Subcommittee is charged with implementing and sustaining appropriate education, engagement, and learning programs that further the identification, creation, and delivery of best practices, models of use, and standards for the development, deployment, and use of AI across the UC and in support of the UC mission of teaching, research, and public service.

Subcommittee Members:

Jennifer Lofthus (Subcommittee Co-chair) is the General Compliance Manager for the Office of Ethics, Compliance, and Audit Services where she oversees ADA, privacy, and general compliance matters. She leads system wide campus privacy officer and ADA coordinator committees and provides general compliance oversight in a wide variety of regulatory areas. Previously, Jennifer worked for her alma mater, UC Santa Barbara, as their ADA compliance officer, policy manager, campus privacy officer, records manager, and conflict of interest and delegations of authority coordinator. Prior to coming to the University of California, Jennifer was a civil litigator in Santa Barbara specializing in fraud, elder abuse, and disability law. 

Van Williams (Subcommittee Co-chair) is the Vice President of Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer for the University of California, a $40+ billion-dollar enterprise that spans ten campuses and six health care systems. As the UC CIO, Van serves as the university’s chief IT leader and strategist, collaborating with campus and health CIOs, and other leaders across the UC system. Van also oversees IT related strategic priorities for the UC Office of the President (UCOP). Prior to UCOP, Van was the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Strategic Initiatives at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC), and served as the campus Cyber-Risk Responsible Executive. Van oversaw UCSC’s $800M technology organization, and led a staff of 250. Before joining the UC system, Van spent more than 15 years at New York University in various senior roles, including Chief Information Officer for NYU’s Stern School of Business. He has an MBA in finance, entrepreneurship and marketing from Stern, and a bachelor’s degree from NYU, where he majored in classical civilization and minored in chemistry. Van is deeply committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and believes higher education is a key driver toward the creation of a healthy society.

William Allison serves as the Chief Technology Officer at UC Berkeley where he leads the University's tech strategy including a focus on AI, cloud computing, and infrastructure standardization. He sponsors the Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation program and is currently an adviser to Berkeley's SkyDeck accelerator. Bill promotes effectiveness and innovation for the Berkeley campus and also helps effect change broadly across the UC-system through collaborative engagement in the UC CTO group and taking an active role on UC task forces and committees.

Simon J. Atkinson serves as vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Davis. He oversees the Office of Research, with responsibility for review and acceptance of extramural research awards; research relationships with government and industry; encouraging and assisting faculty in developing research and scholarly studies; oversight of intramural research support; functional responsibility for organized research units and projects; management of certain research-related programs, instrumentation and facilities; management of several UC Natural Reserve sites; review and approval of the use of human subjects and conflict of interest disclosures; and coordination of patenting and licensing of campus intellectual property.

Camille Crittenden, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, and co-founder of the CITRIS Policy Lab and EDGE (Expanding Diversity and Gender Equity) in Tech at UC. She also chaired the California Blockchain Working Group (2019-20) and co-chaired the Student Experience subcommittee of the UC Presidential Working Group on Responsible AI (2020-21). Prior to coming to CITRIS in 2012, she was Executive Director of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law, where she helped to develop its program in human rights, technology, and digital media. She has written and spoken widely on these topics, as well as technology applications for civic engagement, government transparency and accountability, and the digital divide. She held previous positions as Assistant Dean for Development with International and Area Studies at UC Berkeley and in development and public relations at University of California Press and San Francisco Opera. She earned an MA and Ph.D. from Duke University.

Albert Duntugan is the Chief Data Officer of the UCLA Health Sciences, where he leads the Office of Health Informatics & Analytics (OHIA), which is the pillar of data and analytics for the UCLA Health IT organization.  Albert works with colleagues in both health system operations and clinical research to drive advanced analytics initiatives that create value for patients, providers, and staff.  He is focused on leveraging investments made in traditional analytics to accelerate the adoption of AI in a safe and responsible manner.  Albert is committed to developing a data and analytics culture that drives progress toward health justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Shea Lovan currently serves as the Executive Director of Core IT Services and Chief Technology Officer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, bringing over 30 years of extensive experience in the IT field. His journey at UCSB is marked by a progression through various roles, including service as Interim Chief Information Officer. In his current position, he oversees a broad array of campus-wide IT services, leading efforts improve the information technology practice and guiding significant IT initiatives. Shea earned is Master's degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University's Presidents and Key Executives program in 2022.

Sajjad Matin serves as UC’s systemwide cybersecurity counsel. Sajjad advises UC campuses and health centers on emergent issues related to technology and policy. Sajjad also serves as legal support to the Office of Information Technology Services and advises UC stakeholders on a broad range of cybersecurity matters, including incident response and vendor risk. Prior to his arrival at UC, Sajjad served as a federal prosecutor in Miami, Florida, where he focused on investigating and prosecuting cybercrimes. Sajjad’s experience includes civil enforcement as an attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Prior to public service, Sajjad worked in the Silicon Valley as an intellectual property attorney. Sajjad is a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law, as well as Johns Hopkins University and MIT.

Sesh Murthy is a Computational Data Science researcher at the UCSD Halicioglu Data Science Institute. He is using AI to help improve student outcomes. Prior to this Sesh has built and nurtured successful businesses in AI, security, automated IT operations, & migrating customers to the cloud. Sesh was a Research Staff Member AI group, IBM T. J. Watson Research center where he built and deployed AI systems using multi-agent architectures directed by Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). These systems were fielded at multiple paper and steel mills to improve productivity, reduce tardiness, and improve quality. Sesh co-founded Cloud Raxak, a leading edge company to automate security operations. Cloud Raxak customers include the largest payment processor in the world. Sesh was the dean of computer science and software engineering at the Western Governors University. Prior to this Sesh held several roles as Vice President at IBM Global Services. He was responsible for IBM  Cloud Managed Services, and for the first version of the IBM cloud. He helped several large customers move securely to the cloud. Prior to this Sesh was an executive in the IBM Software Group. Sesh holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS from Ohio State University, and a B. Tech from IIT Kanpur. Sesh holds over 20 patents, and was a winner of the AAAI best paper award and the Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice from INFORMS. Sesh enjoys mentoring underprivileged kids through YPIE.

Melissa Waver is a research policy manager in UCOP’s Research Policy Analysis and Coordination office. In this role, Melissa develops tools and advises on a variety of research administration matters including extramural funding proposals and awards, federal regulations, non-profit sponsored projects and clinical trial agreements.  She has been a university research administration professional for 10 years. Prior to joining RPAC, Melissa worked in the Sponsored Projects Office at UC Santa Barbara as a sponsored projects officer. She has experience in several aspects of research administration, including pre-award, award negotiation, regulatory compliance implementation and non-financial post-award management.