At its annual meeting in May 2024, WAMC elected Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s James Hendler, Ph.D., to its Board of Trustees. At RPI, Hendler is the director of the Future of Computing Institute, Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web, and Cognitive Sciences, and director of the RPI-IBM Future of Computing Research Collaboration. 

Hendler is a data scientist with specific interests in open government and scientific data, data science for health care, AI and machine learning, semantic data integration, and the use of data in government. One of the originators of the Semantic Web, he has authored over 450 books, technical papers, and articles in the areas of open data, the Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, and data policy and governance. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a U.S. Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002. He is the first computer scientist ever to have served on the board of reviewing editors for Science. 

In 2010, Hendler was selected as an “Internet Web Expert” by the U.S. government and helped in the development and launch of the U.S. data.gov open data website. In 2013, he was appointed as the Open Data Advisor to New York State and, in 2015, he was appointed a member of the U.S. Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee. In 2016, Hendler became a member of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information. In 2017, he became a member of the Director’s Advisory Committee of the National Security Directorate of PNNL, and, in 2021, he was appointed chair of the ACM’s global Technology Policy Council. Hendler is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration, the AAAI, AAAS, ACM, BCS, and IEEE.

Hendler appears regularly on The Roundtable, WAMC's morning conversation on public affairs and current events, bringing his expertise in emerging technologies to the discussion. He is also an occasional guest on the Vox Pop call-in show, sharing his expertise on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.