Hi, I’m Ashley!

I'm a West Virginia native and Washington, DC–based product policy leader working at the intersection of AI safety, integrity, and trust & safety. I currently work in product policy for a major technology platform, with a background spanning the U.S. State Department, Columbia SIPA, and a decade at the intersection of technology, security, and governance.

About Me

I'm a first-generation college graduate, a proud Appalachian woman of color, and a Staff Product Policy Manager working in trust & safety and AI policy for a major technology company, where I help set the standards for how AI is used in high-stakes product decisions and lead policy for some of the most sensitive moments a platform has to navigate — including elections, crises, and account security.

My path here started in communications, not policy. I spent my twenties helping a U.S. Senator, an international development organization, and several think tanks and universities turn complex ideas into clear, accessible language for online audiences — work that still shapes how I write policy today: I try never to let technical precision become an excuse for being unclear.

I found my way to integrity and security policy at Columbia SIPA, where I earned my MPA in International Security, Technology, and Cyber Policy as a U.S. State Department Thomas R. Pickering Fellow, with a posting at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. While there, I taught graduate courses on disinformation, data privacy, free expression online, and the politics of identity; researched far-right extremist rhetoric and hate speech online at the Columbia Data Science Institute; and worked with Columbia World Projects on election security and digital identity. I also served as President of SIPA's Digital and Cyber Group, where I ran a $40,000+ budget bringing in speakers and professional opportunities for students, including our annual team at the Atlantic Council's Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge in New York.

That path — from Appalachia, through communications, through the classroom, and into the platforms that shape public life — is part of why I care about building technology that works for people who are too often left out of the room where it's designed.

For more on my current work, feel free to connect on LinkedIn.