Greyline
Greyline Research
Research Portfolio and Policy Brief Library
Policy briefs, essays, and research notes on the institutions, incentives, and accountability systems that determine whether AI can be deployed responsibly.
Read the briefsGreyline Research is the public research portfolio of Trevor Willis, a philosophy major and political science minor at Arizona State University, graduating in Summer 2026. It is designed to demonstrate original thinking, policy writing discipline, and a serious research agenda across AI ethics, governance, security, and public accountability.
View preparationAI risk is not only a property of a model. It is also a property of the institution expected to govern it. Greyline studies the gap between what AI systems require and what real public institutions can actually supervise, contest, and correct.
Short policy briefs, LinkedIn essays, research memos, and reading notes that translate complex AI governance debates into clear arguments for professional and academic audiences.
Trevor Willis
Arizona State University | Philosophy major, Political Science minor | Summer 2026
Trevor Willis is a senior at Arizona State University studying philosophy with a minor in political science, graduating summa cum laude in Summer 2026. He plans to pursue graduate study in international affairs and technology policy, with a focus on AI governance, diplomacy, and emerging technology regulation.
Greyline Research reflects his view that AI policy needs more than technical guidance and procedural checklists. His work focuses on public-sector AI governance, institutional readiness, and the vendor relationships that shape how AI systems are deployed in practice.
LinkedIn profileHow agencies, schools, courts, and public institutions should adopt, limit, explain, and oversee AI systems that affect public decision-making.
Whether an institution has the expertise, appeal processes, audit capacity, and accountability structures needed before deploying AI.
How contracts, audit rights, data access, liability, and vendor claims become central tools of AI governance in practice.
A living library of portfolio-ready writing on AI governance, designed for graduate admissions, policy employers, professional networking, and public-facing thought leadership.
A reframing of responsible AI: before asking whether a model is safe, ask whether the institution around it can govern it.
Read essayA look at where nuclear-era analogies break down, and what new frameworks for verification, restraint, and coordination may require.
Coming soonWhy policymakers often move too quickly to implementation while leaving the underlying value questions underspecified.
Coming soonA philosophy-and-policy critique of the assumption that human values are settled inputs for engineers to encode, rather than contested choices requiring legitimacy.
Coming soonStudy how public institutions can adopt AI without weakening due process, legitimacy, or democratic accountability.
Develop the governance capacity gap into a repeatable framework for evaluating whether institutions are prepared to deploy AI responsibly.
Examine how contracts, vendor obligations, audit rights, and liability shape AI governance after procurement.
Examine how diplomacy, multilateral agreements, and emerging treaty models could shape cross-border AI oversight and strategic technology regulation.
Greyline Research is grounded in philosophy, political science, public policy coursework, and hands-on experience building and using AI systems for professional work.
Senior at Arizona State University studying philosophy with a minor in political science. Expected summa cum laude graduate, Summer 2026. Dean's List honoree.
Public Policy Development, American Foreign Policy, The Supreme Court, Environmental Ethics, Symbolic Logic, Theory of Knowledge, and Contemporary Analytic Philosophy.
Research synthesis, policy writing, argument analysis, ethical risk assessment, institutional analysis, and translating abstract governance questions into practical policy recommendations.
Experience building and deploying AI systems, using AI tools for professional workflows, and evaluating how real users interact with emerging AI capabilities.
Analytical writing on U.S.-China AI competition, AI infrastructure and energy security, and Gulf state positioning in clean energy markets.
AI security essay Energy security responseExperience writing concise policy memos with issue framing, strategic implications, and recommended action for senior decision-maker audiences.
Clean energy memoContact
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