Bio
Simone Zhenting Mao is an award-winning Canadian political theorist and AI governance researcher whose primary work bridges normative theory, policy design, and real-world governance challenges. Trained in economics, political science and philosophy, she is currently a researcher affiliated with Harvard University, contributing to interdisciplinary projects on political philosophy, institutional design, and emerging technology governance. Her research aims to develop actionable pluralist, value-sensitive design principles and policy recommendations for ethical AI alignment and global cooperation, dedicated to building global consensus and reconciling value pluralism.
Simone’s current work aims to align AI systems with diverse human values and build a model that addresses not only epistemic uncertainty and normative disagreement but also the institutional and geopolitical complexities of global AI governance. She has been recognized internationally, including as a “Leader of Tomorrow” at the 54th St. Gallen Symposium. In her previous work, she is the (co-)author of three academic books spanning economic institutional governance, industrial development evaluation, ancient philosophy, and classical studies.
She contributes actively to both academic research and policy innovation in global AI ethics, translating normative frameworks into institutional design and policy practice. Her peer-reviewed work published in international double-blind journals reevaluates the normative foundations of autonomous intelligence, while her presentations at institutions such as KU Leuven advance pluralistic models for managing epistemic uncertainty and large-scale risks in AI systems. Drawing on the theories of Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and Charles Taylor, etc., she integrates political philosophy into the technological practice, critically examining the epistemic limits of AI systems and guiding large-scale risk governance.
Simone is also a political philosopher, focusing on reexamining the foundational concepts of major philosophers that have defined the political and socio-historical realities of our time, and their relevance to contemporary democratic life, digital sovereignty, and AI constitutionalism. Her current focus centers on social contract theory and popular sovereignty, particularly Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s General Will. She also engages deeply with issues of migration, global citizenship, nationalism, ethnicity, and multiculturalism, especially as institutionalized in Canadian policy and practice.
She has collaborated with Oxford, Sapienza, Peking and Renmin Universities, the UN “AI for Good” initiative, the Canadian Parliament, and leading think tanks and NGOs globally. She also holds fellowships at Toronto Metropolitan University and The Dais, focusing on Canada–U.S. bilateral relations and public policy. Her insights into international relations allow her to powerfully connect geopolitics, world order, and cross-civilizational values, proposing a new conceptual framework grounded in and critically expanding upon Henry Kissinger’s vision of world order and Samuel Huntington’s theory of civilizational conflict. This line of inquiry is exemplified by her award-winning essay, The Multipolar World Ahead: Reinventing World Order in an Era of Uncertainty, recognized by the St. Gallen Symposium.
She is also contributing to cross-civilizational philosophical exchange through her forthcoming translation of Francesco Fronterotta’s Methexis, reflecting a deep tradition in classical metaphysics and epistemology. Earlier in her career, she contributed to national-level policy frameworks on industrial transformation, regulatory institutional design, and value-based assessment tools—working across urbanization, macroeconomic strategy, and multi-level governance. By integrating macroeconomic governance with systemic design, her work equips her to bridge theory with institutional governance and policy implementation.
Her longterm project examines conflicts of values and belief systems along both ontological and ethical dimensions, building upon and advancing the influential philosophical legacies of Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Deleuze, while drawing on her background in classical studies. Her work addresses foundational problems in the history of philosophy and seeks to offer new theoretical contributions. At its core, all of her research centers on one fundamental question: How can people live together harmoniously in multi-ethnic, multicultural societies? What philosophical foundations enable us to recognize diversity and respect difference, and how?
All of her work across diverse fields converges toward a unifying vision: rethinking the philosophical and institutional foundations of human cross-civilizational coexistence in an age of global value fragmentation, rising intelligent machines, and institutional uncertainty and redesign.