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People 2016

Fellows, Affiliates & Mentors @ CTSP

We are pleased to present our CTSP Fellows for the 2016 year:

Morgan G. Ames

Project: Promoting Ethical Technical Cultures and Digital Citizenship for Low-Income and Minority Students in Richmond, California

Morgan G. Ames investigates how the ideologies of computing cultures lead to specific design choices, policies, usage patterns, and other cultural and material articulations. In particular, she researches the role, and limitations, of technological utopianism in education and development projects. Based on eight years of research, she is writing a book on One Laptop per Child which explores the motivations behind the project and the cultural politics of a model site in Paraguay. Her next project focuses on the social meanings of a one-to-one laptop program in the “Iron Triangle” of Richmond, California. Morgan holds a PhD in communication (min. anthropology) from Stanford, and previously studied information science and computer science at Berkeley.

Kristen Barta

Project: Room for Improvement: Can Migrant Support Services Augment Their Impact with Innovative Technological Solutions?

Kristen Barta (MA, Stanford) is a doctoral student of Communication at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on technologically-mediated social support and healing narratives of survivors of interpersonal violence (IPV). Her previous research compared tactics used by law enforcement, anti-violence non-profits, and journalists in reporting on IPV and proposed recommendations to reduce victim blaming and shift cultural attitudes about IPV. Outside of academia, Kristen has worked in the anti-violence field, and has written for Healthline, Genentech, and the Palo Alto Weekly. She is committed to positioning her research at the nexus of academia and public service.

Charles Belle

Project: CityDrones

Charles Belle engages in research at the intersection of open data policies and practices in public policy to support innovative communities. He is an appointed public member of the City & County of San Francisco’s Committee on Information Technology and a Non-Residential Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Internet & Society. He has an AB and AM from the University of Chicago and a JD from UC Hastings. He is currently working with the City of San Francisco to develop policies that will govern the use of UAS by City agencies and departments.

Gracen Brilmyer

Project: Vision Archive

With a background in museum collections and digital archives, Gracen is interested in how accessibility and usability of digital archives can be shifted. Using Queer Theory and Disability Studies as frameworks to question accessibility, her work aims to trouble current methods of accessibility and reimagine what digital archives might do for diverse audiences. Through this research and in conjunction with community-centered design processes, Gracen combines her interest of information usability with social justice. Her work in technology has involved building websites and digital collections as well as utilizing digital tools for community outreach.

Jenna Burrell

Project: Promoting Ethical Technical Cultures and Digital Citizenship for Low-Income and Minority Students in Richmond, California

Jenna Burrell is an Associate Professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley. Her first book Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafes of Urban Ghana (The MIT Press) came out in May 2012. She has a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics. Before pursuing her PhD she was an Application Concept Developer in the People and Practices Research Group at Intel Corporation. For over 10 years she has been studying the appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by individuals and groups on the African continent. Her theoretical interests span several areas including theories of materiality, user agency, transnationalism, post-colonial relations, and digital representation.

Rena Coen

Project: A User-Centered Perspective on Algorithmic Personalization

Rena Coen is a Master’s Candidate at the School of Information, focused on technology policy and law as they relate to privacy, human rights, and civil liberties online. She is an advanced student in the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, a fellow at the Internet Law & Policy Foundry, a member of BioSENSE Lab, and is co-president of the Berkeley Information Privacy Law Association. Rena holds a B.S. in Computer Science and has over a decade of experience in database development, systems analysis, and technical process improvement.

Margaret Fesenmaier

Project: Room for Improvement: Can Migrant Support Services Augment Their Impact with Innovative Technological Solutions?

Margaret Fesenmaier (MA, Virginia Tech) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the possible pro-social impacts that new communication technologies may have for migrants living abroad, particularly the effect of these technologies on transnational relationships.  Following graduation (BA, Penn State), Margaret volunteered with the US Peace Corps where she taught health classes at the local school and worked first hand with returned migrants. Her previous work has investigated the influence of social media on the transmission of health information from migrants to their family still living in Moldova.

Kristine Gloria

Project: CityDrones

Kristine is a Ph.D. candidate in Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Kristine is currently a Researcher at the Internet Policy Initiative at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Research Laboratory. Her areas of expertise include privacy, human motivation & decision-making, linked data, web science, communication studies, and public policy. She has published numerous articles and has spoken around the world on topics ranging from privacy and cloud technologies to Big Data in public policymaking. Previously, Kristine worked as the deputy legislative director for the Texas House of Representatives (District-38).

G.S. Hans

Project: A User-Centered Perspective on Algorithmic Personalization

G.S. Hans is Policy Counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology and directs its San Francisco office. He works on many technology policy issues, including privacy, security, and free expression. Gautam has significant experience in policy (having written policy papers, regulatory comments, and amicus briefs); has spoken at conferences, universities, and in the press; and promotes CDT’s work through events and convenings. Gautam holds a J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School; a M.S. in Information from the University of Michigan School of Information; and a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Anna Lauren Hoffmann

Projects: Situating Computational Research Ethics; Value of Respect: Reclaiming the Philosophical and Political Foundations of Informed Consent

Dr. Anna Lauren Hoffmann is a postdoctoral researcher with the School of Information, UC Berkeley. Her research is situated at the intersections of ethics, information, technology, and culture, with a particular emphasis on social justice and information and communication technologies (ICTs). From 2009 to 2011, she was a project assistant with the NSF-funded Internet Research Ethics Digital Library, Resource Center, and Commons initiative with Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan (PI). Her work has appeared in various publications, both scholarly and popular.

Rebecca Jablonsky

Project: Digital Civic Life: Using Technology for Neighborhood Watch

Rebecca Jablonsky is a PhD student in Science & Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior to her studies, she worked as a UX Designer and researcher in the SF Bay Area. Rebecca holds a Masters of Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University and a Masters of Psychology from New York University.

Anne Jonas

Project: Promoting Ethical Technical Cultures and Digital Citizenship for Low-Income and Minority Students in Richmond, California

Anne Jonas is a doctoral student at the School of Information at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on education, social justice, and social movements. She explores how education functions in our society, how people learn best, how students’ experiences with educational environments do (and don’t) meet their needs, how different forms of teaching and learning influence educational outcomes, strategies for dismantling and resisting unjust systems, cultivating participatory and collaborative approaches to projects, and the role of digital technologies and the internet in all of these areas. Anne previously worked at the Barnard Center for Research on Women and the Participatory Culture Foundation.

Una Lee

Project: Vision Archive

Una Lee is a graphic designer, facilitator, and design theorist working in social justice. She uses collaborative and community-centered design processes to draw on the brilliance, wisdom, and creativity of people most affected by the issues in question. The tools and images that have been co-created through these processes have contributed to substantial changes in legislation and policy, rallied international support, received coverage from major media outlets in Canada, the US, and Mexico, as well as garnered numerous awards. Una resides in Toronto and collaborates internationally.

Stephanie Lie

Project: Digital Civic Life: Using Technology for Neighborhood Watch

Stephanie Lie is an artist, technologist and educator based in the SF Bay Area. She received an MFA in Visual Arts from UC San Diego and BAs in Computer Science and Art Practice from UC Berkeley. Her work focuses on technology, ecology, and the public sphere. She has been a researcher at UC Natural Reserve System, Center for Urban Ecologies, and UC Institute for Research in the Arts. She has taught new media art at Stanford, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. Stephanie is currently a Lecturer at the Berkeley Center for New Media and a Software Engineer at LinkedIn.

Katherine Lo

Project: Promoting Ethical Technical Cultures and Digital Citizenship for Low-Income and Minority Students in Richmond, California

Katherine Lo is a doctoral student in Informatics at UC Irvine, living in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 2015-2016 school year. Her research is committed to understanding and countering ideological biases and sociostructural inequalities in computer science education. Katherine has long been an advocate for women in gaming and computer science in particular. She founded and continues to direct the biennial init(together) Southern California Women in Computing Conference, which draws hundreds women in high school and college interested in pursuing computing careers. She also founded and moderates Reddit’s “/r/GirlGamers”, an online community with over 30,000 members for critical discussion of women in gaming.

Fan Mai

Project: Digital Civic Life: Using Technology for Neighborhood Watch

Fan Mai is a teacher, researcher, and writer. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Virginia. She currently serves as the managing editor of The Communication Review and is working on a book proposal based on her dissertation on international migration and new media in urban China. As a broadly-trained sociologist, her research interests are at the intersection of technology, culture, identities and mobility. Born and raised in China, Fan is fascinated with intercultural communication and fusion cuisine.

Sona Makker

Project: Operationalizing Privacy for Open Data Initiatives: A Guide for Cities

Sona Makker is a J.D. Candidate at Santa Clara University School of Law, specializing in Privacy and Data Protection Law. Sona’s research interests are in urban sociology, and information privacy law and policy. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Sona worked on the KnowPrivacy Project at the Berkeley School of Information, which focused on influencing policy change surrounding the privacy practices of popular Internet websites. Sona is also a certified privacy compliance professional (CIPP/US) and has worked in both the public and private sectors, including the Privacy and Public Policy team at Facebook.

Nathan Malkin

Project: Operationalizing Privacy for Open Data Initiatives: A Guide for Cities

Nathan Malkin is a PhD student in computer science at UC Berkeley, focusing on security and privacy.  His research aims to make people more secure and put them in control of their privacy by understanding how we make decisions and drawing on these insights to inform the design of more usable tools.

Mike Pacer

Project: Plain Writing

Michael Pacer is a graduate student at UC Berkeley. He studied psychology at Yale (B.A.) and cognitive science at UC Berkeley (Ph.D., expected May 2016). His work focuses on computational frameworks for understanding causal induction, explanation, and inference using Hierarchical Bayesian models. He has presented his work in NIPS, SciPy, the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, BayLearn, and at the annual meetings of the Cognitive Science Society. He is the co-creator of proselint, with CTSP fellow Jordan Suchow.

Emily Paul

Project: A User-Centered Perspective on Algorithmic Personalization

Emily Paul is a Master’s Candidate at the School of Information. Before graduate school she worked in communications, fundraising, and project management at The New Press and at the Center for Global Development. She has designed and carried out ethnographic research on high speed internet access and use in Mendocino County and has studied social engagement among millennials. She has also conducted user research as part of product design teams at the School of Information and as an intern at Salesforce.

Robyn Perry

Project: Room for Improvement: Can Migrant Support Services Augment Their Impact with Innovative Technological Solutions?

Robyn Perry (MIMS, UC Berkeley) researches language revitalization in Bay Area diaspora communities at the International Computer Science Institute. She collaborates with Steven Bird, the creator of the Aikuma app and NLTK. Following graduation in Linguistics/Italian Studies, (BA, UC Santa Cruz), she fine-tuned an empathic approach to supporting low-income communities using new media technologies while working with grassroots organizations at the Progressive Technology Project. She has a unique ability to find common threads between disparate mindsets and domains to synthesize understanding, translate between parties at odds, and forge collaborative working groups. She speaks Spanish and Italian.

Adamantia Rachovitsa

Project: Coding Values in the Internet’s Standards? The Example of Encryption

Adamantia Rachovitsa is an Assistant Professor of International Law at the College of Law, Qatar University. Prior to taking up this position she read her PhD at the University of Nottingham. Her current research focuses on human rights protection online, data protection and cybersecurity. She has consulted governmental and non-governmental stakeholders in the Middle East on drafting and implementing cybercrime and data protection legislation. She is a participant to the Research Group on Human Rights Protocols Considerations in the Internet Research Task Force. She founded, and serves as the elected Secretary of, the Qatari Branch of the International Law Association.

Elaine Sedenberg

Project: Value of Respect: Reclaiming the Philosophical and Political Foundations of Informed Consent for the Era of Big “Things”

Elaine Sedenberg is a Ph.D. student at the School of Information, where she is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow and a Berkeley Graduate Fellow. Her current research focuses on the legal, ethical, and policy aspects of information sharing and data access for research purposes. Previously, Elaine was a Science Policy Fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) in Washington D.C., which is an FFRDC that supports the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), NSF, and other agencies.

Frank Smith

Project: CityDrones

Frank Smith is a Lecturer with the Centre for International Security Studies and the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. His teaching and research examine the relationship between technology and international security. He has published a book about defense against biological weapons, as well as several articles about biosecurity and diplomacy. His current research addresses quantum computing and cybersecurity. Frank splits his time between the United States and Australia. He has a Ph.D. in political science and a B.S. in biological chemistry, both from the University of Chicago.

Luke Stark

Project: Situating Computational Research Ethics: History, Codes, and Context

Luke Stark is completing his doctorate in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Luke’s dissertation project, located at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS), media studies, and the study of human-computer interaction (HCI), examines how psychological theories of emotion, and techniques designed to test, track, and evaluate feelings, have been incorporated into digital interaction design. Luke has published or has work forthcoming in Ethics & Information Technology, Social Media + Society, and The Information Society; his popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New Inquiry.

Jordan Suchow

Project: Plain Writing

Jordan Suchow is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences at UC Berkeley. His research examines the perceptual and cognitive processes that limit our ability to see, remember, and learn from the world around us, and then develops technologies and techniques to overcome those limitations. Jordan studied computer science at Brandeis (B.S.), vision at NYU, and psychology at Harvard (M.A., Ph.D.). His work appears in PNAS, Current Biology, and Nature, among others, and he has created and released software systems and tools used by hundreds of researchers — MemToolbox, Wallace, and Dissertate. He is the co-creator of proselint, with CTSP fellow Michael Pacer.

Pavel Vanegas

Project: A User-Centered Perspective on Algorithmic Personalization

Pavel Vanegas is a Master’s Candidate at the School of Information, specializing in user research and data visualization. Most recently, Pavel worked at Kaiser Permanente where he conducted market research and stakeholder interviews for a project comprising of online physician ratings. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociocultural Anthropology from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in Educational Policy from Brown University. Prior to coming to the I School he worked for three years as a research analyst for a labor union.

Timothy Yim

Project: CityDrones

Timothy Yim, CIPP/US/E, CIPT, CIPM, directs Startup Policy Lab’s research and policy initiatives in emerging technology to create data-driven policies that drive global innovation. An attorney, his legal practice focuses on privacy and data security, cyberlaw, and intellectual property. He is a member of working groups focused on emerging technology, including the internet of things and novel blockchain ecosystems. Timothy sits on the IAPP Publications Advisory Board and has been published in a variety of channels and speaks regularly on law, emerging tech, and public policy at conferences and in the media.

Banner Photo Credit: “UC Berkeley South Hall” by Anand Rajagopal for I School IMSA is licensed under CC BY 2.0