3 Signals, One Alarm: Brian Taylor Joins the AI Institute

A NASA/JPL engineer and a builder of organizations sounded the alarm first. A 25-year Princeton-educated leader just confirmed it from a completely different direction, and joined as Vice President, Strategic Alliances and National Development.

 Family First Foundation today announced that Brian Taylor has joined the Artificial Intelligence Institute, the organization Family First launched to give students the behavioral foundation to use AI as a thinking tool, not a shortcut, as Vice President, Strategic Alliances and National Development.

The Institute's mission began with an unglamorous moment: Dr. Russell Knight and Richard Awni, at an Eagle Scout project meeting at Von Karman Hall, JPL, watching what was happening inside their own local school district's classrooms. Children weren't simply using AI, they were handing their thinking to it, accepting its answers the way they'd accept a fact, without the instinct to check. That discovery, made by two fathers who weren't looking for a cause, became a national mission.

Taylor arrives as a third, independent confirmation of the same alarm. His conclusion came from a different direction entirely: 25 years of frontline experience in higher education, watching the same pattern of AI-driven cognitive shortcutting play out across schools nationally. The signal became undeniable this month, when Taylor's own alma mater made news of its own, Princeton University's faculty voted to end 133 years of unproctored examinations, a tradition dating to 1893, and require exam proctors starting July 1, 2026, citing AI-enabled cheating that had become too widespread and too difficult to detect under the honor system.

"None of us were looking for each other," said Taylor. "A NASA engineer, a business builder, and a career educator don't usually end up in the same room. But we all saw the same thing, from completely different angles, and that's the kind of convergence you don't get to ignore."

Taylor brings nearly four decades of education leadership to the role. A Princeton All-American who served as captain and leading scorer of the 1971 U.S. Pan-American Games basketball team, he played ten seasons of professional basketball in the ABA and NBA before a torn Achilles tendon ended his playing career in 1982. He returned to Princeton to complete his degree, then built a career across some of the country's most demanding education environments: nearly a decade at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, senior leadership that helped grow the Inner City Education Foundation into a network of Los Angeles charter schools, a turnaround leadership role as Headmaster of Teleos Preparatory Academy in Phoenix, and 25 years as Director of Sports and Education for Family First Foundation across Southern California, work the Foundation has always done quietly, without seeking the scale or spotlight this announcement represents.

"Brian and I have been friends for close to three decades," said, we've watched our own kids grow up in parallel through every stage of that friendship. When his signal lined up with what Russell and I had already found, it didn't feel like recruiting him. It felt like the third piece finally being in the room."

The Institute's AI Foundations Framework identifies Grade 4 as the critical intervention window, the point at which homework enters a student's life and AI tools are already available to answer it for them. The team has taken to calling the underlying commitment the Fourth-Grade Promise: that every student, regardless of school or zip code, has someone who catches them at that exact moment. The framework is currently deployed across twenty school sites in its second year of paid district deployment.

Taylor's commitment to building access extends to his own family: his son Bryce Taylor, a Harvard-Westlake and University of Oregon standout who played a decade of professional basketball in Germany, now serves as head coach of the Noblesville Boom of the NBA G League. His younger son, Brendyn Taylor, is an assistant coach at Loyola University Chicago after two seasons at UCLA. Taylor coached both as they came up.

Taylor is also the founder of SOAL U, the Princeton-based leadership program formerly known as Summer of a Lifetime, and a recipient of the 2025 Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

About the Artificial Intelligence Institute - The Artificial Intelligence Institute, launched through Family First Foundation, builds the behavioral foundation students need to use artificial intelligence as a thinking tool rather than a substitute for independent thought. Its AI Foundations Framework is live and deployed across twenty school sites nationally.

About Family First Foundation - Family First Foundation has spent 25 years serving children, families, and school communities across Southern California through programs in education, mentorship, and opportunity.