Dr Merel Ekelhof
Dr Merel Ekelhof
Dr. Merel Ekelhof is a Foreign Exchange Officer with the Strategy, Policy, and Governance Directorate of the U.S. DoD Office of the Chief Digital and AI Officer (OCDAO), where she deals with topics related to autonomous weapons, governance & ethics, and strategic and international partnerships. She is also Chief Strategy advisor to Task Force 59 Unmanned and AI integration with the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. She has been seconded by the Netherlands Ministry of Defence, where she held a position as AI innovation manager at the Defence Materiel Organization. Before joining the Defense Department, Dr. Ekelhof was the lead researcher on Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy at UNIDIR’s Security and Technology Programme, a government adviser on issues related to Autonomous Weapons, and a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School. Dr. Ekelhof serves on NATO’s Maritime Unmanned Systems Innovation Advisory Board and the UK Ministry of Defence AI Ethics Advisory Panel. She is a NATO JFAC certified targeteer and holds a Ph.D in Law and an LL.M in Law and Politics of International Security from the VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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