Redefining Learning for the AI Age: Dewey Murdick to Help Launch Georgetown’s Academic Innovation Network
Dr. Dewey Murdick is a Professor of the Practice and Senior Fellow at Georgetown University, where he works across the university with the Red House and the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) to develop the Academic Innovation Network (AIN) and pioneer human-AI interaction in educational settings. In this role, he leads research into how students and professors can collaborate with AI without inhibiting critical thinking, flow, attention, and meaning, while developing innovative models for lifelong learning that address cost, quality, and access simultaneously.
Previously, Dewey led Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) providing decision-makers with data-driven analysis on the security implications of emerging technologies. He served as Executive Director leading a team of approximately 60 faculty and staff, oversaw the Center’s operations, and spearheaded strategic engagement with key stakeholders in government and industry. Prior to this role, he was Director of Data Science and Research, where he founded CSET’s data analytic capabilities.
Before CSET, he served as Director of Science Analytics at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where he led data science and machine learning efforts for science-related initiatives; Deputy Chief Scientist at the Department of Homeland Security, where he had key oversight of the department’s research and development portfolio; and at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), where he co-founded an office in anticipatory intelligence and led high-risk, high-payoff research programs. His career also includes experience in intelligence analysis and software development across government and private sectors.
Dewey’s experience in the public, private, and academic sectors spans artificial intelligence policy, emerging technology analysis, data science, machine learning application development, technology foresight, and research and development portfolio oversight. He pioneered work in technical foresight analysis and has directly informed U.S. and international policymakers on critical technology issues.
Dewey dedicates his work to cultivating environments where pioneering innovation and resilient communities flourish together, empowering individuals and advancing a more purposeful and sustainable societal future. He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from the University of Virginia and a B.S. in Physics from Andrews University.
Q&A with Dewey Murdick
1. What do you see as the opportunities for AI in the context of academic innovation?
AI presents opportunities to reshape both learning and teaching by transforming how students and professors interact with knowledge and each other.
Students + AI: AI appears to allow students to perform at dramatically higher capability levels, creating what I believe is an entirely new learning challenge. Instead of climbing the skills ladder rung by rung, students may now navigate a complex framework where human skills and AI capabilities interweave.
The opportunity lies in designing educational experiences that help students build genuine expertise from this elevated starting point rather than becoming dependent on tools they don’t understand.
Students might engage with complex problems earlier, using AI to synthesize information while focusing cognitive energy on higher-order thinking: creative synthesis, ethical reasoning, and navigating ambiguity. This could enable tackling more meaningful challenges that require distinctly human capabilities.
Professors + AI: AI may further shift the professor’s role from content delivery toward cognitive facilitation and knowledge contextualization. When AI provides instant information and analysis (despite current limitations), professors can focus on helping students develop critical thinking skills to evaluate, synthesize, and apply insights effectively.
AI might enable real-time identification of knowledge gaps, personalized learning pathways, and sophisticated assessments that distinguish tool proficiency from genuine understanding. Professors could potentially focus less on routine tasks and more on mentoring human development while modeling effective human-AI collaboration.
2. What do you want the Georgetown community to know about your approach to human-AI interaction and pedagogical innovation as you begin this work?
I bring an evidence-driven approach shaped by over six years building Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). My approach has always been to follow the data wherever it leads, even when it challenges conventional wisdom. At CSET, we didn’t pick sides—we followed evidence to provide nuanced insights that shaped smarter policy approaches.
This same commitment to intellectual honesty will guide my work with the Academic Innovation Network. I maintain a balanced view of AI’s potential—recognizing both its tremendous opportunities and genuine risks.
This perspective shapes how I’m focused on exploring AI systems that preserve flow states and foster human connection while creating educational challenges that require distinctly human capabilities—judgment, creativity, and interdisciplinary thinking. When AI can seemingly complete traditional assignments effortlessly, we need fundamentally new approaches.
This extends to developing assessment methods that distinguish tool proficiency from genuine understanding, and helping students recognize when cognitive struggle drives valuable development. I am looking forward to building on the progress CNDLS and Red House have already set in motion.
3. What are your primary goals for your first year? Given your experience leading teams and co-founding new ventures, what are the first concrete steps you’ll take to get started?
My first-year goals center on learning from Georgetown students, faculty, and staff while establishing the foundation for systematic innovation. I’m excited to get back in the classroom teaching across different formats—individual courses, group projects, and experiential learning—which will provide updated insight into how students actually learn in this new environment.
Working with my colleagues at CNDLS and Red House, we’ll connect with employers to establish feedback mechanisms about how well students are prepared for the workforce and build both the research foundation and experimental infrastructure needed for the Academic Innovation Network.
The first concrete step is systematic listening—understanding current challenges before proposing solutions. Then we’ll incubate promising approaches.
4. How do Georgetown’s Jesuit values provide the right foundation for the mission you are embarking on, and how will it guide the work of the Academic Innovation Network?
Georgetown’s approach to whole person education is why I want to work on these problems here. The Jesuit principle of care for the whole person isn’t just compatible with rethinking human education—it’s essential to it.
As we explore AI integration, we’re not just asking, “Can we do this?” but “Should we do this, and how do we ensure it serves human flourishing?” The Jesuit emphasis on careful reflection directly informs our approach to evaluating which AI applications genuinely enhance human potential versus those that might diminish it. Georgetown’s commitment to justice means expanding access to quality education beyond the privileged few.
The Jesuit tradition of rigorous inquiry combined with ethical reflection perfectly matches our experimental approach. We’re committed to following evidence while ensuring technology serves humanity. This mission is the starting point for every idea we explore.
5. You aim to use AI to support efforts to rehumanize education. That’s a powerful and perhaps counterintuitive idea. How might this be experienced by a future Georgetown student?
A future Georgetown student would experience education designed around the principle that AI brings people together rather than creating distance between them. Instead of isolated interactions with AI tutoring systems, they’d engage in collaborative learning environments where AI facilitates deeper human connection and teamwork.
Imagine a student working on a complex policy challenge. AI helps synthesize vast amounts of research, but the creative synthesis, strategic thinking, and ethical reasoning happen through intense collaboration with peers from different disciplines. The AI handles information processing, allowing students to focus on uniquely human work: wrestling with ambiguity, building consensus, and developing wisdom.
These students would start higher on the learning curve—beginning with AI-enhanced capabilities but using that elevated starting point to tackle genuinely challenging work requiring human judgment and creativity. They’d develop strong reality-checking abilities, learning to distinguish between tool proficiency and genuine understanding.
Most importantly, they’d graduate as highly capable human-AI collaborators who can leverage AI while maintaining the critical thinking, creativity, and human connection that no algorithm can replicate. They’d be prepared to help define what it means to be powerfully human in an AI-augmented world. This vision aligns with the Red House’s mission to rehumanize education, creating experiences that help students and faculty engage with meaningful challenges while leveraging AI to enable deeper human flourishing.
6. Finally, to help the community get to know you better, what do you enjoy doing outside of work to recharge?
I love spending time with my wife and son—our conversations, projects, and explorations together keep me grounded and connected to what matters most to me. I’m also energized by facilitating discussions and deepening multigenerational connections in my community.
Swimming, running, and playing my guitar are my favorite ways to recharge. I love reading books like Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith, which was a wonderful read that laid out a fascinating view into other potential paths to mind development. I also have a fascination with the end of the Bronze Age and books written before the 15th century.