Laylani Addison

Laylani Addison is the current Imperator of the United Empire of Earth, independent politician and former Professor and Dean of the University of Mentor.
==Academic career==
Addison is a scientist and was Professor of Integrated Science and Xenotechnology at Mentor University between 2922 and 2931, then became Dean of Applied Science at the same university until 2947. 
==Early life==
Addison grew up on Oya III, next to the only slice of Xi'an sovereign land within the UEE, and as such spent her childhood amidst human and Xi'an neighbors. Addison also met with Jesse Baigent there, who was born and raised on Terra, now her spouse and campaign manager. He was then running an Oya III-based consulting firm focused on increasing Human and Xi'an trade. When Addison's career moved to Rhetor they relocated the firm there as well and kept running it until he became Addison's campaign manager. 
==2950 elections==
Her campaign pledges focus around redirecting credits towards improving education, funding scientific research, and loosening current restrictions on AI research. Particularly the latter point has caused a lot of attention, positive and negative. This helped catapult her into the final five candidates. She also supports Synthworld and publicly subsidized universities. 
===Final voting success===
After the final voting was held between October 10 and 24, she was proclaimed Imperator-elect by commissioner Tyrone Salonen of the Imperial Election Bureau at a ceremony in Moscow. She was sworn in on 1 January 2951.
Addison gave the following speech at the ceremony:
===First act and campaign promises===
Her first act after becoming Imperator would be to loosen the current restrictions on AI research to allow for the exploration of new ideas and innovations that would benefit the entire Empire.
Her campaign promises are to increase government spending on education and scientific research initiatives to launch a new era of innovation. Would authorize highly regulated AI research to support these advances.
===Debating===
Addison is also a good calm and composed debater as her performance received widespread acclaim. In a popular vid on Spectrum, Addison spun a vicious, condescending attack by Human First candidate Calvin Derry into a touching personal treatise about why it was important for Humans to embrace alien influences and ideas.
She recently did an interview on the Clean Shot show.
===Endorsements===
Addison's election campaign was endorsed by the following organizations:
*Educators United
*Institute for Interspecies Peace
*UEE Science Society
===Personal statement===
== Criticism ==
Not everyone is happy with Addison's pro-AI and pro-science policies, fearing that she may chase scientific changes too rashly. Parker Terell from Plain Truth called her "pro-AI policies reckless and potentially catastrophic", stating the hubris of her position is infuriating. He did not believe that after all the issues and close calls we had with AI, it can suddenly be safe to proceed. He pointed out that her intellectual arrogance is shown perfectly when she claims she's the one who can ensure it can be done safely. 
Other more wild conspiracies floating around Spectrum claim she is a Xi'an sleeper agent, but that ploy is mostly considered too inelegant for the Xi'an. 
==References==