Andrea Downing

Andrea Downing is a security researcher and Founder of The Light Collective, a patient-led nonprofit with a mission to advance rights, interests, and voices of patient communities in health technology. A BRCA1 previvor, Downing has built her career at the intersection of patient advocacy, cybersecurity, and health AI safety, helping to define a field that is still nascent.

She first entered the national stage in 2013 as a spokesperson for the plaintiff in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, the landmark Supreme Court case that ended gene patenting in the United States. In 2018, following the Cambridge Analytica unauthorized data harvesting, she discovered and reported a zero day vulnerability affecting patient health groups on a major platform, leading to a federal  regulatory complaint.

Through the Light Collective, Downing has led development of the Patient AI Rights Initiative, the first and only patient-led governance framework in healthcare, and tools that  measure whether AI systems align with patient priorities. A self-described “mutant hacker,” Downing is a regular speaker at DEF CON and publishes research at the intersection of health and emerging technology