Colin Maclay specializes in understanding and creating the conditions for innovation and change, which often means collaboratively and creatively engaging wicked problems in media, technology and culture. A hacker of universities and committed collaborator, Colin connects scholarship and practice, bridges disciplines and sectors…and challenges assumptions and hierarchies.
He has worked in the United States and around the world – with particular attention to under-resourced communities – on diverse and inter-related topics including innovation, democracy, sustainability, media, learning, mis- and disinformation and policy. Colin’s curiosity has drawn him to explore related issues in wide ranging settings including the US Census, Nigerian Film Industry, libraries, climate change and environmental justice, higher education, popular culture and communications infrastructures. Maclay serves as Research Professor of Communication and Director of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, where he co-created and guides the Civic Media Fellowship Program – which has a new book out, the Presidential Sustainability Solutions Postdoctoral Program, the Arts & Climate Collective, the Media As Socio-Technical Systems (MASTS) research group and the How Do You Like It So Far? podcast.
Maclay also co-created and has led the annual International Seminar on Digital Transformation in partnership with ISDI and the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University for over a decade. Before moving West, Colin was the founding director of the Digital Initiative at the Harvard Business School, an effort to understand and shape the digital transformation of business and society through a dynamic mix of collaborative research, teaching and engagement with the practice.
He also spent a decade helping to build, scale and make sustainable Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, including its transition to a university-wide center and significant growth of its team and resources. He helped found the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder effort to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy online. He has advised and served on the boards of numerous private and civil society organizations. Maclay holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD from Northeastern University.
