Many people in AI safety are young. She has more professional experience than many leaders in the field.
She is well-connected with Pentagon leaders, who trust her input. She also is one of most hardest-working people among the West's analysts in her efforts understand and connect with the Chinese side, as she uprooted her life to literally live in Beijing at one point in order to meet with people in the budding Chinese AI Safety community.
Here's an example of her work: AI safeguards: Views inside and outside China (Book chapter) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97810032...
She's also co-authored several of the most famous "survey" papers which give an overview of AI safety methods: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22h...
She's at roughly the same level of eminence as Dr. Eric Horvitz (Microsoft's Chief Scientific Officer), who has similar goals as her, and who is an advisor to Biden. Comparing the two, Horvitz is more well-connected but Toner is more prolific, and overall they have roughly equal impact.
I am genuinely flabbergasted as to how she ended up on the board. How does this happen?
I can't even find anything about fellow board member Tasha McCauley...