John (Jack) N.T. Shanahan

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Technology and National Security Program

Research Areas

Lieutenant General John (Jack) N.T. Shanahan, United States Air Force, Retired, retired in 2020 after a 36-year military career. In his final assignment he served as the inaugural Director of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Center (JAIC). Jack served in a variety of operational and staff positions in various fields including flying, intelligence, policy, and command and control. He commanded at the squadron, group, wing, Agency, and Numbered Air Force levels. As the first Director of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (Project Maven), Jack established and led DoD’s pathfinder AI fielding program charged with bringing AI capabilities to intelligence collection and analysis.

Jack is a 2022 graduate of the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Master of International Studies program and serves on the NCSU School of Public and International Affairs Advisory Council. He serves an advisor to the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) Defense Panel. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS); is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Autonomous Weapons Systems Assurance and Safety Subcommittee; serves on the Advisory Group for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Hamilton Center on Industrial Strategy; and is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Committee on Testing, Evaluating, and Assessing Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Systems under Operational Conditions for the Department of the Air Force. He serves as a consultant on the use of AI-enabled technologies for national security.

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