Maria Lungu is an assistant professor of Public Administration in the School of Government and International Affairs at Kennesaw State University. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Tennessee College of Law and her Ph.D. in public administration from Florida Atlantic University. She is currently a policy group leader at the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) and a research affiliate of the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia. Before entering academia, she served as a legal consultant at Stepping Stones International and worked for the Metropolitan Public Defender’s Office in Nashville.
Her research examines the intersection of law, public administration, and artificial intelligence, with particular attention to technology in policing and court systems — how AI is used to shape administrative decision-making, where it improves efficiency, and when it undermines accountability. She also studies the socio-technical implications of predictive policing and comparative AI governance in Africa, including consulting work with the Data Science Law Lab at the University of Pretoria. Her work has appeared in Public Money and Management, the Journal of AI Law and Regulation, the Review of Black Political Economy, Administrative Theory and Praxis, and the American Journal of Qualitative Research, among others.
She has been named an Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society (AIES) research fellow and was a member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance.
