Anna Knack, The Alan Turing Institute 

Anna Knack is a Senior Research Associate in the Turing’s Defence and National Security Grand Challenge and Lead Researcher at CETaS. Her research aims to identify solutions to the technical and policy challenges for the security community in leveraging opportunities in Artificial Intelligence and emerging technology. Anna is leading the defence AI policy research workstream at the Turing. Her recent and ongoing research focuses on AI assurance in Defence, AI in intelligence analysis and decision support, human-machine teaming, and AI for cyber defence. 

Prior to joining the Turing, Anna was Deputy Co-ord Lead of the Technology, Disruption & Uncertainty research workstream at RAND, where she coordinated a portfolio of work that leveraged futures methods to help policymakers understand and prepare for the future strategic operating environment. This included military capability development, defence innovation ecosystems, defence industrial base development, cybersecurity, cybercrime and counter-terrorism. 

Anna’s research has informed policy and research priorities at the US DoD Research & Engineering OUSD (R&E); UK Strategic Command; UK MoD; UK Army HQ; UK Cabinet Office; the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre; the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the French Ministry of Defence; the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group; the UK National Cyber Security Centre; the European Defence Agency (EDA); the European Commission; the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity; and Europol. 

She has presented her research at national and international conferences, and has conducted policy briefings for senior decision-makers in national government, the European Commission, and the EDA. Anna holds an M.A. in International Relations: Conflict Studies and Human Rights from the University of Utrecht and a B.A. in Politics and Social Policy from the University of York.