Election integrity, geopolitical crises, child safety, fraud — the issues can be daunting, but the position is gratifying for Michelle Swartz Castiglione, ’06, Google’s risk intelligence lead.
“I lead an organization of risk intelligence analysts, and our mission is to anticipate and address threats to user trust and safety on all of Google’s platforms, like Search, Maps, Play, and Gmail,” she says. “Every day I learn something new. And it’s a particularly exciting time as Google works to build the most advanced and safe artificial intelligence tools at the forefront of global innovation.”
Castiglione started at Google during the pandemic after a 15-year career in government as a senior expert for the U.S. intelligence community, serving three White House administrations. She was recognized by the Jepson School of Leadership Studies in 2016 for her work profiling Middle Eastern leaders that shaped the foreign policy decisions of several presidents, White House officials, and members of the National Security Council.
“I loved the teamwork that came with managing geopolitical crises and advising presidents and their cabinets about difficult policy decisions.”
“My time in government taught me how to work across complex organizations and bureaucratic boundaries to achieve big goals,” she says. “I loved the teamwork that came with managing geopolitical crises and advising presidents and their cabinets about difficult policy decisions.”
Castiglione’s work has grown in scale to create outcomes to benefit Google’s 7 billion users worldwide. “The audacity of that responsibility motivates me every day,” she says.
Castiglione and her family recently moved back to her hometown of Annapolis, Maryland. There, she enjoys playing sports with her family, something that harkens back to her time at Richmond.
“It’s hard to believe that I attended UR almost 20 years ago,” she says. “I remember playing field hockey on Crenshaw field like it was yesterday.”