Dr. Shauna Knox is Founder and CEO of The Emancipation Group, an innovation studio building protective AI infrastructure to address bias in foundational models before they compound harm through repeated student interactions. Her current work centers retrieval-augmented generation systems designed to sit between commercial AI models and students, middleware that generates research evidence on how protective infrastructure affects learning outcomes and mathematical identity development. Her flagship product, The Emancipation Game, serves as the research platform for this work: a web-based video game teaching higher-order mathematics through global Black history, featuring AI-powered tutoring systems that demonstrate what happens when technology is built specifically for Black children's cognitive development.
Knox serves as Senior Advisor to Project Evident on AI and education and co-chairs the United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent Working Group, bringing technical precision to conversations often dominated by abstract algorithmic justice concerns. Her policy experience includes a decade at the U.S. Department of Education managing the ESSA Title IV Part A portfolio, where she shaped requirements for effective technology integration that prioritized teacher capacity over device procurement, and former Senior Vice President at National Black Child Development Institute, where she established frameworks for ethical AI deployment with Black children and families.
Her scholarship includes two books with Routledge on curriculum studies and decolonizing educational practice, one receiving AERA Division B Honorable Mention for Outstanding Book of the Year in 2022. Her classroom experience teaching in DC public schools grounds her technical work in what actually happens when children encounter AI systems built without consideration for their intellectual traditions or community knowledge.