Austin Bonner

Austin Bonner is the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer for Policy and the Deputy Director of the National AI Initiative Office.

Austin leads a team of tech policy experts in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy that is driving policy on artificial intelligence, digital equity, and other issues. She also spearheads a wide range of White House efforts on spectrum policy, communications security and reliability, and wireless innovation.

Austin joined OSTP from the Federal Communications Commission, where she served as Legal Advisor and Acting Chief of Staff to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. There, she helped shape new FCC programs designed to promote broadband access and affordability in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She served as Commissioner Starks’s principal policy advisor on wireline and public safety issues and, later in her tenure, on media and consumer protection issues.

Before joining the FCC, Austin practiced communications and appellate law at two leading D.C. law firms. Her practice included regulatory challenges, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation, with a particular focus on complex technologies and telecommunications.