Berkman Klein Center Announces 2019-2020 Community

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is proud to announce the incoming and returning fellows, faculty associates, and affiliates who together will form the core of the Center’s networked community in the 2019-2020 academic year.

The community contributes to the Center's mission of addressing issues at the intersection of technology and society, with a focus on impact in the public interest. Members of the Center’s community pursue a wide range of research methods, networking efforts, and educational activities, as well as coding, prototyping, and building.

“We’re honored to welcome such an exceptional group of outstanding individuals to the Berkman Klein Center, who will form together with our returning students, staff, affiliates, and faculty the core of our diverse and vibrant community for the next academic year,” says Berkman Klein’s Executive Director and Professor of Practice Urs Gasser. “In our rapidly expanding field of study and practice, we’re faced with unparalleled challenges and opportunities, and we’re humbled and excited to embrace both with such an imaginative cohort of educators, researchers, builders, and advocates, united in our commitment to academic values and social justice.”

“The BKC fellowship program connects those on our campus with the rest of the world, both in international reach and in disciplinary diversity,” says Berkman Klein Center Faculty Director Jonathan Zittrain, George Bemis Professor of International Law and Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University. “Too rarely do eclectic thinkers from the university, government, industry, and public interest institutions more generally productively gather. The program offers us a chance to work singly and together on some of the most intractable and pressing problems emerging from the adoption and use of new technologies.”

The class of fellows will primarily work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with Berkman Klein faculty, students, and staff, as a vibrant community of research and practice.

Honoring the networked ethos at the heart of the Center, faculty associates and affiliates from institutions the world over will actively participate as well. These relationships, as well as the countless fruitful engagements with alumni, partners, interns, and other colleagues, are fundamental to the Berkman Klein Center’s work and identity and serve to increase the capacity of the field and generate opportunities for lasting impact.

The Berkman Klein fellowship program aims to “create a protocol, a culture, a spirit that puts the emphasis on being open, being kind, being good listeners, being engaged, being willing to learn from one another.” We are excited to start this next year together with the following people who will continue our work as a community in this light.

Joining the community in 2019-2020 as Berkman Klein fellows:

John Basl, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. He will work to develop a committee-based oversight framework for addressing ethical challenges raised by artificial intelligence. John will be an AI Initiative Fellow-in-Residence with the Berkman Klein Center and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.

Beatriz Botero Arcila is an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School. At the Berkman Klein Center she will continue her doctoral research, which studies when and how local governments access and use data collected by third parties that provide "city-services," such as Uber, Airbnb, or Google Maps.

Chiao-Fang Chen is a prosecutor in the Taiwan Taichung Prosecutors Office and a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist. She will research the incorporation of new cyber tools and techniques into the investigation of money laundering in fraud crime.

Leonard Cortana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. His research examines the transmedia representation and activism of mixed-race youth, particularly in Brazil, France and its overseas territories, and the United States. As a fellow, he will investigate the development of digital ancestry and genealogy platforms, and conduct fieldwork with mixed-race youth who are using online tools to explore their roots and support collaborative activism.

Brenda Dvoskin is a doctoral student at Harvard Law School, and her research focuses on the moderation of hate speech on social media platforms.

Hannane Ferdjani, a lead presenter and producer for Africanews in the Republic of the Congo, will study how to develop new solutions journalism methods when covering nations undergoing digital transformations, with a focus on ensuring rigorous and effective reporting. Hannane will be a Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow in Journalism Innovation.

Ariel Herbert-Voss is a hacker-turned-academic and computer science Ph.D. student at Harvard University where she specializes in adversarial machine learning, computer security, and mathematical optimization. As a fellow, she will research vulnerabilities and developing threat models for AI-based systems to help security researchers more effectively red-team these systems in production.

Karen Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior with a secondary field in Science, Technology and Society (STS) at Harvard University. She will examine democratic processes in defining algorithmic fairness, variation among technical experts and policymakers in conceptions of artificial intelligence, and the development of micro-targeting practices in predicting and influencing human behavior.

Timothy Neff earned his Ph.D. from New York University's Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. He will research news and social media discourse about climate change, focusing on issues of access, equity, and engagement in the transnational public spheres of climate governance processes.

Mutale Nkonde, a U.S. based policy analyst, will conduct an ethnographic study on how congressional staffers learn about the impact AI technologies have on vulnerable communities.

Julie Owono is a lawyer and the executive director of Internet Sans Frontières, a Paris-based digital rights advocacy organization. Her research at the Berkman Klein Center will focus on reflecting and developing a solution that allows content platforms to moderate hate and violence on their spaces in a manner that is respectful of freedom of expression, especially in environments with strong political and ethnic antagonisms.

Julia Reda has focused her political work on copyright reform as a Member of the European Parliament 2014-2019. As a Berkman Klein fellow and a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, Julia will advance research on how to modernize the academic publishing system to enhance equitable access to knowledge, and to empower academic authors to make use of their rights in the service of open science.

Elizabeth M. Renieris is the founder of hackylawyER, a consultancy focused on law and policy engineering, and an expert on cross-border data protection and privacy laws, digital identity, and emerging technologies like blockchain and AI. She will focus her research on designing new and improved legal frameworks for the digital age.

Afsaneh Rigot, a legal and human rights researcher working with ARTICLE 19, will focus on the prosecution process and use of digital evidence gathered through tools such as social media and dating apps against queer communities (focusing specifically on the MENA region), using this to further conversations about the role and responsibilities of companies towards their users and the need for better user-centered technology.

Naomi Scheinerman is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at Yale University, and her research explores the uses of randomly selected democratic bodies in addressing matters of algorithmic governance and AI regulation. Naomi will be an AI Initiative Fellow-in-Residence with the Berkman Klein Center and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.

Todd Wallack, an investigative and data reporter for the Boston Globe Spotlight Team, plans to study how newsrooms can better act as watchdogs as companies and government agencies increasingly employ obscure algorithms and artificial intelligence to make decisions. Todd will be a Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow in Journalism Innovation.

Apryl Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Susquehanna University. Her work examines racial bias in online dating, questions user agency when using match-making algorithms, and explores the experiences of people of color as they navigate online dating platforms.

Christo Wilson, an Associate Professor at Northeastern University, will audit the dependencies between major search engines and social media platforms to provide a deeper understanding of the operations of the platforms and how their design decisions impact the public.

Baobao Zhang, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Yale University and a research affiliate with the Center for the Governance of AI at the University of Oxford, will study global public opinion toward AI and machine learning researchers’ views on AI governance.

Joining as faculty associates:

Danielle Allen, Danielle Citron, Jessie Daniels, Jason Farman, Howell Jackson, Jennifer Jenkins, Brandeis Marshall, Kathryn Modecki, Russell Newman, Dietmar Offenhuber, Najarian Peters, Plamena Popova, Maria Rodriguez, Pier Luigi Sacco, and Abbey Stemler.

Joining as affiliates:

Nele Achten, Kike Aluko, Naniette Coleman, Emma Day, Karthik Dinakar, Evelyn Douek, Fred Fedynyshyn, Noa Gafni, Aaron Gluck-Thaler, Siobhan Grayson, Tyrene Jones, Uli Köppen, Maciej Kuziemski, Taylor Lorenz, Asaf Lubin, Ryan Merkley, Matthew Mulder, Katherine Pratt, Thibault Schrepel, Elif Sert, Joshua Simons, and Alisa Valentin.

The Berkman Klein Center remains proud of and grateful to the following returning community members who will retain affiliations in the coming year.

Returning as fellows:

Sandra Cortesi, Ashveena Gajeelee, Kat Geddes, Padmashree Gehl Sampath, Rosemary Leith, Momin Malik, Sabelo Mhlambi, Sarah Newman, Hal Roberts, Bruce Schneier, and Alexandra Wood.

Returning as faculty associates:

Ifeoma Ajunwa, Virgilio Almeida, Solon Barocas, Susan Benesch, Francine Berman, Fernando Bermejo, Lionel Brossi, Herbert Burkert, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Nick Couldry, Primavera De Filippi, Juan Carlos de Martin, Finale Doshi-Velez, Jens Drolshammer, Niva Elkin-Koren, Christian Fieseler, Mayo Fuster Morell, Phillipa Gill, Christoph Graber, Kishonna Gray, Mary Gray, Woodrow Hartzog, Samer Hassan, Jerome Hergueux, Benjamin Mako Hill, Joichi Ito, Malavika Jayaram, Dariusz Jemielniak, Vasilis Kostakis, Harry Lewis, Andres Lombana-Bermudez, David Malan, Jasmine McNealy, James Mickens, Desmond Patton, Leah Plunkett, Paola Ricaurte, Nagla Rizk, Sophia Roosth, Hyunjin Seo, Aaron Shaw, Toshie Takahashi, Alexander Trechsel, Zeynep Tufekci, Effy Vayena, james Wahutu, and Dorothy Zinberg.

Returning as affiliates:

Rediet Abebe, Doaa Abu-Elyounes, Titi Akinsanmi, David Arney, Chinmayi Arun, Elettra Bietti, Susan Bird, Doreen Bogdan, Celina Bottino, Scott Bradner, Tyler Cabot, Bao Kham Chau, Aloni Cohen, Jack Cushman, Jessica Dheere, Ron Dolin, Joan Donovan, Andy Ellis, Jeannette Estruth, Mailyn Fidler, Camille Francois, Nathan Freitas, Mariel Garcia Montes, Dipayan Ghosh, Ben Green, Andrew Gruen, Nicholas-Brie Guarriello, Nikolas Guggenberger, Armando Guio Espanol, Natalie Gyenes, Moritz Hennemann, Lily Hu, Tim Hwang, Jonathan Jackson, Nani Jansen Reventlow, Aida Joaquin Acosta, Amy Johnson, Nathan Kaiser, Jonas Kaiser, Rachel Kalmar, Dragana Kaurin, John Kelly, Danil Kerimi, SJ Klein, Jenny Korn, Vivek Krishnamurthy, Greg Leppert, Yvonne MacPherson, Mary Minow, Patrick Murck, Helmi Noman, Juan Ortiz Freuler, Quentin Palfrey, Sunoo Park, Matthew Pearl, Jonathan Penn, Jonathon Penney, Kathy Pham, Keith Porcaro, Lorrayne Porciuncula, Tenzin Priyadarshi, Alvand Salehi, Elaine Sedenberg, Boaz Sender, Mindy Seu, Beau Sievers, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, Ben Sobel, Fabro Steibel, Gosia Stergios, John Stubbs, Peter Suber, Joana Varon, Salome Viljoen, Waide Warner, Jordi Weinstock, Amy Zhang, and Adam Ziegler.

Returning as the Fellows Advisory Board:

Judith Donath, Eszter Hargittai, Colin Maclay, Wendy Seltzer, Jake Shapiro, David Weinberger, and Ethan Zuckerman.

About the Berkman Klein Center

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is dedicated to exploring, understanding, and shaping the development of the digitally-networked environment. A diverse, interdisciplinary community of scholars, practitioners, technologists, policy experts, and advocates, we seek to tackle the most important challenges of the digital age while keeping focus on tangible real-world impact in the public interest. Our faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates conduct research, build tools and platforms, educate others, form bridges and facilitate dialogue across and among diverse communities. More information at www.cyber.harvard.edu