Hala Nelson

Hala Nelson is a Lebanese-American mathematician, co-founder of the digital twin company MI2MR, and a leading voice at the intersection of AI, mathematical modeling, digital twins, and cybersecurity. She is the author of AI Powered Digital Twins (Wiley, 2026) and Essential Math for AI (O'Reilly, 2023), translated into multiple languages and adopted across AI and data-science programs worldwide. Hala holds a PhD from New York University and is a Professor of Mathematics. Her advisory work spans technology companies, critical infrastructure sectors, and the Department of Defense. She is an elected Fellow of the Spades Institute — a national security organization dedicated to advancing democracy, freedom, and ethics by bridging government, industry, and academia.

Hala's upbringing during Lebanon's civil war — including a childhood injury from a missile explosion — shaped her lifelong fascination with human behavior, consciousness, and intelligence. Her father taught her mathematics through high school, at home and in French. His guiding principle, which remains hers: "Mathematics is the one clean science."