Students play an integral role in the Berkman Klein Center’s mission to explore and understand cyberspace. There are a number of pathways for Harvard students interested in getting involved with the Center and its community of staff, fellows, and faculty. To get updates, plus additional information about the Center’s research and activities, we encourage you to:
- Sign up for our Harvard Student Bulletin, over which we’ll share information about Research Assistant positions, as well as special Harvard student events and opportunities.
- Sign up for the Center's other public email lists, most notably the Buzz, which shares events, news, and other BKC activities. Follow the Center on Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram.
The below list includes examples of ways to get involved.
- Events. The Center hosts an extraordinary number of events, including student-driven events, throughout the academic year, most of which are open to the public. This includes a lunch speaker series, in which the Center brings in speakers and fosters discussions on interesting and thorny questions about technology and society. Events are announced via the above-referenced email lists, and are listed on the Berkman Klein website, where livestreams are also available for select public events.
- Research Assistant Opportunities. Staff researchers and Fellows at the Berkman Klein Center regularly work with student research assistants to support the Center’s docket of projects, and individual BKC faculty directors may also hire research assistants directly to support scholarship and other work. Students should monitor the "Research Assistantships" page on the BKC website and the HLS “Administrative Updates” page.
- BKC Programs. At the heart of the Berkman Klein Center are the individuals, institutions, and initiatives that bring people and ideas together. We host a number of institutional programs and network-building efforts that provide meaningful opportunities for students, faculty, practitioners, and members of the public to engage with us and with one another. Check out more of our student-facing programs:
- Technology / Tools. Although coding or other technical skills are generally not prerequisites for participation in most of the Berkman Klein Center’s activities, the Center welcomes contributions to and involvement in its suite of free and open source software projects on the BKC GitHub repository. Students and others can also use a number of tools the Berkman Klein Center has built for educational purposes, discourse, research, and design. Examples of tools include H2O “OpenCasebook” platform; the Digital Literacy Resource Platform; Media Cloud; and TagTeam.
- Engagement with BKC Fellows and Other Community Members. In addition to its staff and affiliated faculty, the Berkman Klein Center is home to an annual cohort of fellows, Rebooting Social Media (RSM) visiting scholars, who join the Center each year to further their own work and/or the work of the Center. Fellows and visiting scholars sometimes work with research assistants on projects related to their domains and expertise, run informal reading groups, etc. The Berkman Klein Center also hosts faculty associates and affiliates, some of whom may be local. Students are welcome to reach out directly to individual community members whose research aligns with their areas of interest. Information about the people at the Center may be found at https://cyber.harvard.edu/people.
Tech at Harvard, Beyond BKC
BKC is a hub for activities relating to technology within the Harvard University community. But, opportunities abound — at HLS and throughout the University — for students with a strong interest in technology, media, entrepreneurship, innovation, and related issues. Examples include:
At Harvard Law School
- Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law School
- Harvard Journal of Law and Technology (“JOLT”)
- Harvard Law & Technology Society
- Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Project (“HLEP”)
- HLS Law, Science, and Technology Program of Study
- Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (“PILAC”)
Beyond Harvard Law School
- Ash Center (Harvard Kennedy School)
- Center for Research on Computation and Society (Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)
- DigitalHKS (Harvard Kennedy School)
- Digital Initiative (Harvard Business School)
- Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (Harvard University)
- Harvard Data Science Initiative (Harvard University)
- Harvard Innovation Labs (Harvard University)
- Library Innovation Lab (Harvard Library)
- Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (Harvard University)
- Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC)
Opportunities for Harvard Law School Students
- Classes for Harvard Law School Students. Berkman Klein Center faculty directors regularly teach courses in the HLS curriculum. Faculty directors also teach courses across the University; all BKC courses are posted on our "BKC Courses" page.
- The Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic. The Cyberlaw Clinic is the Law School’s technology law and policy clinical program, founded at what was then known as the Berkman Center for Internet & Society in 1999. The Clinic is open to enrollment only by Harvard Law School 2Ls and 3Ls. Students should keep an eye out for registration information and information about the clinical program during their 1L year.
- Harvard Law School 1L Reading Groups. Harvard Law School offers the opportunity for first-year students to register for 1L Reading Groups in addition to their slate of core 1L classes. 1L Reading Groups are optional, casual, ungraded classroom opportunities that permit engagement with faculty and small groups of students on topics of interest.