All Affiliates Board Core Team All Affiliates Board Core Team Core Team Gina Neff Gina Neff Executive Director Gina Neff is the Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Venture Labor (MIT Press 2012), Self-Tracking (MIT Press 2016) and Human-Centered Data Science (MIT Press 2022). Her research focuses on the effects of the rapid expansion of our digital information environment on workers and workplaces and in our everyday lives. Professor Neff holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and advises international organisations including UNESCO and the OECD. She is on the executive leadership team and chair of the strategy group for UKRI Responsible AI UK (RAI), and is associate director of the ESRC Digital Good Network. She leads the Humanitarian Action Programme at the University of Cambridge, and is a member of the Horizon Europe international AI4Trust team to tackle online misinformation. Professor Neff is a member of the Strategic Advisory Network for the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and serves on the board of directors for the Social Science Research Council in the USA. Her academic research has won both engineering and social sciences awards. Professor Neff led the team that won the 2021 Webby for the best educational website on the Internet, for the A to Z of AI, which has reached over 1 million people in 17 different languages. Core Team Julia Rone Julia Rone Research Associate Julia Rone is a Research Associate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. She has spent the last decade doing research on politics and the utopias and dystopias of digital media. Before joining the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, she was a Wiener-Anspach postdoctoral researcher for the project “Conflicts of Sovereignty in a European Union in crisis” at the Université libre de Bruxelles and the University of Cambridge. She focused in particular on sovereignty conflicts around Brexit and free trade agreements such as CETA and TTIP. Julia holds a PhD in social and political science from the European University Institute in Florence and an MSc degree from the Oxford Internet Institute, which she pursued thanks to a Dulverton scholarship. She has taught at the University of Sofia, the University of Florence and the University of Dusseldorf, and since 2019 has also been supervising BA students in Cambridge. Core Team Louise Hickman Louise Hickman Research Associate Louise Hickman is a Research Associate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Her academic work focuses on the automation of accessibility for disabled people, as well as on questions of social justice and processes of exclusion that are driven by the politics of austerity. She uses an interdisciplinary lens, drawing on critical disability studies, feminist labour studies, and science and technology studies to consider the historical conditions of access work and the ways access is co-produced through human labour, technological systems, and economic models and conditions. Louise previously worked as a senior research officer for the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science and for the Ada Lovelace Institute’s JUST-AI Network on Data and AI Ethics. She continues to co-convene the JUST AI’s working group on rights, access and refusal. An academic, artist and activist, she earned her PhD in Communication from the University of California, San Diego in 2018, and held a postdoctoral position in the Feminist Labor Lab at UC San Diego. Core Team Hugo Leal Hugo Leal Research Associate Hugo Leal is a Research Associate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Hugo first came to the University of Cambridge to CRASSH, to work as a postdoctoral fellow in the internet branch of the project Conspiracy and Democracy and then moved to Cambridge Digital Humanities (CDH) where he was a methods fellow and coordinator of the Cambridge Data Schools. Previously, Hugo was at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, where he completed his PhD. He also holds a Masters in International Relations from the University of Lisbon with a dissertation on complexity theory and new social movements. Hugo is a CDH Associate and a member of the Steering Committee of the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Research Centre, the Association of Internet Researchers and the Centre of Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) Core Team Hunter Vaughan Hunter Vaughan Senior Research Associate Hunter Vaughan is a Senior Research Associate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. He is an environmental media scholar and cultural historian focusing on the relationship between screen media technologies and infrastructures, social justice, democratic agency, and the environment. He is currently Co-PI on the “Sustainability and the Subsea Telecommunication Cable Network” research project funded by the Internet Society Foundation, and Co-PI and Co-Director of the AHRC-funded Global Green Media Network. Dr. Vaughan was a 2017 Rachel Carson Center Fellow and is co-founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Media (Intellect Press). His most recent book, Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret: the Hidden Environmental Costs of the Movies (Columbia University Press, 2019) offers an environmental counter-narrative to the history of mainstream film culture and explores the environmental ramifications of the recent transition to digital technologies and practices. Core Team Stefanie Felsberger Stefanie Felsberger Research Associate Stefanie Felsberger is a Research Associate within the newly-launched EU HORIZON consortium AI4Trust: AI-based-Technologies for Trustworthy Solutions Against Disinformation at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Stefanie is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Gender Studies at Cambridge University. Her research asks how users of cycle tracking apps in Austria navigate the commodification of their menstrual data through a lens of Data Justice. Her research sits at the intersections between menstrual studies, medicine, data capitalism, gender and labour. Stefanie previously worked as Bartlett Fellow at the Access to Knowledge for Development Center at the American University in Cairo. Her work looked at access and control of data, the political economy of data, and surveillance theory. Stefanie studied Political Science and Arabic Studies at the University of Vienna. Core Team Timothy Charlton Timothy Charlton Research Associate Timothy Charlton joined the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy as a Research Associate in September 2023. He works on the Humanitarian Action Programme (HAP), a joint initiative between MCTD and the ICRC Delegation to Cyberspace. His research focuses on the role of digital technologies in humanitarian situations, including armed conflict, and how humanitarian actors can remain neutral, impartial and independent in the face of geopolitical tensions around digital infrastructure. Before joining MCTD, Timothy worked in various roles for the UN World Food Programme. During his PhD at the Department of Digitalization, Copenhagen Business School, Timothy studied how the rise of digital platforms affects society. His particular focus was the experience of workers in the gig economy. As a Visiting Research at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, he investigated the relationship between OSINT communities and conventional journalism. He previously completed an MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and an MSc in Digital Humanities at University College London. Timothy has taught on undergraduate and graduate courses in coding (Python & R), longitudinal methodology and data visualisation, and supervised various final thesis projects. His studies and research have been funded by the DAAD, Candys Foundation and OM Fonden. Core Team Molly Hayhurst Molly Hayhurst PA to Professor Gina Neff Molly is PA to Professor Gina Neff at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Molly joined the Centre in October 2023. Previously, she worked for a social justice charity, holding a number of Project Management roles, delivering services to support people experiencing poverty, homelessness and exploitation. Molly has a BA (Hons) in Sociology from City, University of London. Core Team Irene Galandra Cooper Irene Galandra Cooper Centre Coordinator Irene Galandra Cooper is the Centre Coordinator for the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Before coming to the Centre, Irene was a post-doc at CRASSH as part of the ERC-funded project Genius Before Romanticism. She completed her doctorate as a member of the ERC-funded project Domestic Devotions: the Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home, 1400-1600 at the University of Cambridge. Previous to her PhD, Irene worked for the Wallace Collection, Christie’s, the National Gallery in London, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Core Team Tom Lacy Tom Lacy Policy and Impact Manager Tom is Policy and Impact Manager at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Tom joined the Centre in May 2023 as Research Project and Events Administrator, before moving to his current role in Spring 2024. Previously, he worked for the House of Commons in a number of roles, including supporting the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and as Communications and Engagement Manager in the Journal Office. Tom has a MA in Curating from the University of Essex and a BA (Hons) in History from the University of East Anglia. Core Team Christine Adams Christine Adams Research Project Administrator Christine Adams is Research Project Administrator at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Before joining the Centre in March 2024, she worked in a Scottish social care charity and then in a number of project administration and co-ordination roles in the University of Cambridge. Christine has an MA (Hons) in French from the University of Edinburgh. Core Team Ann Kristin Glenster Ann Kristin Glenster Senior Policy Advisor on Technology Governance and Law Dr Ann Kristin Glenster is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, and the Executive Director of the Glenlead Centre, and an affiliate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) at the University of Cambridge. Ann Kristin is a data protection, privacy, and intellectual property expert and she has written extensively on AI, algorithmic, and digital regulation. She is a graduate of Columbia University and conducted doctoral research at the Harvard Law School. She has taught at University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, London School of Economics (LSE), Brown University, and Harvard University. She delivered a workshop on deceptive design for lawmakers, regulators, and policy stakeholders at the Nobel Prize Summit in Washington D.C. Ann Kristin has authored numerous reports on AI and digital regulation and governance for the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Most recently, she is the co-author of Generative AI: Policy Brief with Sam Gilbert at the Bennett Institute. Affiliates Signe Kossmann Signe Kossmann Signe E Kossmann is an affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Signe is a doctoral researcher working at the intersections of the sociology of security, political action, biopolitics and social theory to inform contemporary praxes. Her research is situated within human rights and humanitarian perspectives and also covers emerging technologies. With the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, Signe is co-working with Dr Johannes Lenhard on an ESRC-funded project with the Digital Good Network and VentureESG on dual-use digital technologies. Signe previously worked with the International Security Department at Chatham House and has been a consultant to the Centre for Information Resilience and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Her research has been cited by the UK Parliament Post and featured by the Council on Foreign Relations and Policy Commons. Signe is also a Research Associate for the CCIP, the Secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate and Security, and sits on Chatham House’s Panel of Young Advisors. Affiliates Juan M. del Nido Juan M. del Nido Affiliate Juan M. del Nido is an affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Drawing from his undergraduate education in neoliberal economics, his experience as a former political consultant in Buenos Aires, and his doctoral training in social anthropology, Juan studies how technology ethicises political and economic knowledge. He is currently a Philomathia Fellow at Cambridge’s Department of Social Anthropology, studying the ethics of behavioural interventions (“nudging”) and how new technologies depoliticise expertise. His previous research into post-political reasoning around Uber’s conflict in Buenos Aires resulted in his book Taxis vs Uber: Courts, Markets, and Technology in Buenos Aires (Stanford U. Press, 2022), awarded the Carol Ember Prize by the Society of Anthropological Sciences. His work has been supported by the ESRC, the Philomathia Foundation, the Royal Economic Society, the Argentine Council for Foreign Affairs, and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and awarded among others the latter’s Sutasoma Award for Research of Potentially Outstanding Merit. Affiliates Sophie Bennani-Taylor Sophie Bennani-Taylor Affiliate Sophie Bennani-Taylor is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Sophie is a researcher focussed on the socio-political implications of digital identification, border technologies, and automated welfare. She is also a prospective PhD student exploring how foundational digital identification platforms shape access to rights, resources, and political participation. Sophie recently completed an MSc in Digital Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her thesis project examined how the ASPEN card – a prepayment card for UK asylum seekers – mediates asylum seekers’ experiences of marginalisation and their access to social and financial resources. Prior to returning to academia, Sophie worked as a Digital Ethics Consultant and co-founded Sopra Steria’s Digital Ethics practice. As a researcher and consultant, Sophie has worked with a range of governmental, private, and non-profit organisations to anticipate and respond to their ethical challenges when working with technology. In 2023, Sophie was recognised as one of Women in AI Ethics (WAIE)’s 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics. Affiliates Zoe Laycock Zoe Laycock Zoe is an Affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. As a professional technologist, Zoe is on a mission to raise awareness, within the software development industry, of the commercial and ethical advantages of delivering human-centred, equitable and accountable technology. Her interests lie in contributing to interdisciplinary research and thought leadership on questions of responsible tech, AI ethics and algorithmic accountability, with the objective of ensuring technical innovation is accessible, safe, fair and aligns with humanity’s collective best interests. Zoe is a Product Marketing leader, who specialises in strategic marketing, product-led growth, GTM (go-to-market) and customer lifecycle marketing. Zoe has 18 years of experience working in the software development industry, as a developer, product manager and growth marketer. She has successfully launched and driven the growth of a diverse range of software applications in the messenger, online media, mapping/ navigation, IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment), gaming/ esports and developer tooling spaces. Zoe remains a hands-on web developer in her spare time and is a passionate champion of DEI in the tech industry as an active member of Women in Technology, Black Girls Code and Women in APIs. Affiliates Alex Wood Alex Wood Affiliate Alex is an economic sociologist at the University of Bristol and Senior Lecturer in HRM and the Future of Work in the ‘Work, Employment, Organisation and Public Policy Group’. In September 2024 he will be joining the University of Cambridge Department of Sociology as Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology. In addition, he is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is author of the book ‘Despotism on Demand: How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace’ and over 20 journal articles or book chapters. His research focuses on the implications of digital technology for power relations, working conditions, and the transformation of capitalism. He is currently writing up research on platform work and algorithmic management. Affiliates Sara Wookey Sara Wookey Affiliate Sara Wookey is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Sara’s transdisciplinary research is informed by her 30 years as an internationally recognised dance practitioner. Her research asks pressing questions about the nature of human interaction that finds articulation through theatres, outdoor sites and museum spaces. Her current concern is how dance and expanded choreography, as relational and site-based practices, change the imaginary of relationships between humans, non-humans and material objects in ways that can be more inclusive and sustainable. Solutions emerge from specific, human centered experiences that detail the kinds of relations that the artist offers. Her argument centers around the way in which personal ways of knowing are negotiated through ones’ embodied social-spatial experiences (i.e. ‘lived experience’) and, therefore, needs to be considered in our contemporary moment. She completed a Post-Doctoral role with Royal Holloway University of London working alongside sociologist Dr Louise Ashley and currently serves as a Trustee with Dancers’ Career Development and is an Associate Researcher for Precarious Movements at the University of New South Wales and with the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge University. Affiliates include Tate Modern, Art Science Museum Singapore, Van Abbemuseum, Dance East and Cambridge University. Photo credit: Camilla Greenwell Affiliates May Hen-Smith May Hen-Smith Affiliate May Hen-Smith is an affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. May is an economic sociologist based in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge and with an interest in decentralized finance (DeFi), tax and the digital economy. May’s Leverhulme-funded project is a 3-year study which follows the experiences of start-ups and established tech companies as they navigate through the economic systems which generate their value and the regulatory systems which constrain their growth. May’s second project is a 10-year longitudinal study of women in offshore finance. It chronicles the experiences and career trajectories of women in offshore financial centres and compares those experiences to women in metropolitan financial centres. May’s third project is funded by the Quebec (Canada) government and is part of an experimental science communication and outreach project devised with Allison Christians (McGill University) called: “Fiscal Literacy NOW: Creating Accessible and Interactive 30-second finance lessons for young people through TikTok and social media”. The intent is to democratize financial literacy through the dissemination of the types of basic finance lessons typically found through higher education. Affiliates Shannon Pierson Shannon Pierson Affiliate Shannon Pierson is an Affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Shannon is a digital threat investigator interested in combatting online harms at scale on social media platforms. Shannon completed her bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of Washington. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Data & Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Previously, Shannon worked on election security projects at Microsoft and Meta. She studied online harassment campaigns and influence operations led by nation-states at the Wilson Center and German Marshall Fund think tanks. She also advised computer scientists at the Helmholtz Center for Information Security throughout the development process of a model capable of identifying multimodal hate speech. Her research has been published at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Symposium on Security, the Wilson Center, and in the journal Disability & Society. Affiliates Peter Chow-White Peter Chow-White Affiliate Peter Chow-White is an affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Peter is a Professor in the Schools of Communication and Computing Science at Simon Fraser University and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He is Director of the Gena Lab where they research the design, adoption, and impacts of communication technologies such as blockchain, social media, sports analytics, and clinical genomics. He also conducts applied research where his teams design and develop big data analytics platforms in blockchain, sports, and health. He advises and consults for industry and policy makers about innovative digital and human solutions to improve their organizations and society. He received his Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and also has degrees in sociology from SFU and history from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Affiliates Margie Cheesman Margie Cheesman Affiliate Margie Cheesman is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Margie is also an Assistant Editor at the academic journal Big Data & Society. Margie is an anthropologist who works with communities using and making digitalisation projects in contexts of international aid and migration. She researches global migration governance and socio-economic inequality, with specific expertise on how money and identity infrastructures are changing in the digital age. This includes the impacts of novel payment systems, demonetisation, biometrics, and decentralised ID. Her PhD, ‘Infrastructure Justice and Humanitarianism: Blockchain’s Promises in Practice’, based at the Oxford Internet Institute and funded by the ESRC, was the first ethnography of blockchain technology in humanitarian settings. Margie has conducted research with refugee groups in Jordan and international organisations such as InfoMigrants, GSMA Mobile for Development, and United Nations agencies. She has previously worked for the civil liberties initiative, Open Migration, the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change (CReSC), and The Observer. Affiliates Genevieve Smith Genevieve Smith Affiliate Genevieve Smith is an Affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Smith is the Associate Director of the Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Here, she examines socio-technical questions of how bias in AI is perpetuated through organizational governance and team structures, as well as how to advance equity and inclusion within teams and technology products. Smith has conducted research on gender and technology for over a decade. Before Haas, she worked with the International Center for Research on Women, UN Women, and UN Foundation. She’s published various papers on topics of gender, justice, work, and technology and holds a Master’s in Development Practice from UC Berkeley. Smith’s research interests lie at the intersection of gender and technology. In particular, she’s interested in the ways AI is developed and managed in the West with impacts on marginalized communities globally, especially women and non-binary people, as well as participatory action research and design justice. Affiliates Jennifer Cobbe Jennifer Cobbe Affiliate Dr Jennifer Cobbe is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Shea Senior Research Associate and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge, where she is part of the Compliant and Accountable Systems research group. She is also a member of the Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Centre. She holds a PhD in Law and an LLM in Law and Governance from Queen’s University, Belfast. Jennifer is generally interested in critical interdisciplinary work on questions of power, political economy, and the law around digital technologies, online platforms, and automation. Her research looks at the law’s relationship with and responses to new technologies and technological development; the socio-political power of tech companies, their business models, ideological underpinnings, and the structural conditions they produce; and socio-technical and organisational mechanisms for improving legal compliance and accountability of complex systems. Affiliates Mar Hicks Mar Hicks Affiliate Mar Hicks is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Hicks is Associate Professor of Data Science School of Data Science at the University of Virginia. Hicks is an author, historian, and professor doing research on the history of computing, labor, technology, and queer science and technology studies. Their research focuses on how gender and sexuality bring hidden technological dynamics to light, and how the experiences of women and LGBTQIA people change the core narratives of the history of computing in unexpected ways. Hicks’s multiple award-winning book, Programmed Inequality (MIT Press, 2017), looks at how the British lost their early lead in computing by discarding women computer workers, and what this cautionary tale tells us about current issues in high tech. Their new work looks at resistance and queerness in the history of technology. Hicks is also co-editor of the book Your Computer Is On Fire (MIT Press, 2021), a volume of essays about how we can begin to fix our broken high tech infrastructures. Before joining UVA, Hicks was Associate Professor of History of Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and was a fellow at the National Humanities Center in 2018-2019. Hicks holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Duke University in History, and a B.A. in History from Harvard. Affiliates Mallika Balakrishnan Mallika Balakrishnan Affiliate Mallika Balakrishnan is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. She is a Digital Organiser at Migrants Organise, an award-winning grassroots platform for migrant justice in the UK. She also organises, researches, and campaigns with No Tech For Tyrants, a student-centred collective working to sever the links between higher education and violent technology. Mallika’s academic work sits at the intersection of political philosophy, technology, and human rights, and Latin America. A 2019-2021 Marshall Scholar, Mallika holds an MLitt in Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy from the University of St Andrews & the University of Stirling, where her work investigated human rights and power in the Global South, as well as an MPhil in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge, where her research explored concepts of democracy in Latin America. She received a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from Agnes Scott College. Affiliates Mia Hassoun Mia Hassoun Affiliate Mia Hassoun is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Mia is an anthropologist and geographer studying urban and digital health. Her DPhil research investigated the social impacts of urban sensor technologies. This project built upon prior research into the social life of NHS health and social care data, as well as on communication technologies in English hospice care. Her research expertise includes smart cities, ageing, RFID and sensor networks, VR/AR technology, science and technology studies, urban planning, and participatory design. Mia received her DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2021. She holds an MA in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Minnesota, a MSc in Digital Anthropology from UCL, and a BA in Anthropology from Yale University. She has been a Senior Researcher on European Commission Horizon 2020 projects since 2016, leading a range of public policy and social innovation work. She currently works as an Ethnographic Researcher with Jigsaw to combat misinformation and violent extremism online. Affiliates Alexa Hagerty Alexa Hagerty Affiliate Alexa Hagerty is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Alexa is an anthropologist researching human rights and technology. She is particularly interested in activism and how communities resist, refuse, and re-imagine technologies. Her work examines the use forensic and biometric technologies in humanitarian interventions, such as identifying the dead in the aftermath of political violence in Latin America and the current war in Ukraine. She also uses ethnographic, participatory, and arts-based approaches to analyse the human rights implications of prediction and surveillance in public health technologies. In addition to academic publications, Dr Hagerty has written for Wired and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her research has been featured at Mozilla Fest, Palais de Tokyo, Deutsches Hygiene‑Museum and covered by news outlets including The New York Times and The Guardian. She is the author of Still Life with Bones: Genocide, forensics, and what remains (Penguin Random House, 2023). She holds a PhD from Stanford University. Affiliates Evani Radiya-Dixit Evani Radiya-Dixit Visiting Fellow Evani Radiya-Dixit is a Visiting Fellow at the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge and a 2021 Rotary Scholar. Advised by Professor Gina Neff, Evani conducts research on policymaking for facial recognition technology. Evani completed her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. Previously, she worked on machine learning projects at Nvidia and Google. Her research work has been published at the International Conference on Machine Learning, the Stanford Public Interest Technology Lab, and the think tank New America. With her interest in public service, Evani recently worked at the U.S. federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and served as a data privacy strategist for a California City Council. She also served as a Teaching Assistant for Computer Science courses and taught in Bogotá through Stanford CS Bridge. Evani is passionate about diversity and gender justice and enjoys creative writing and Raas Indian dance. Affiliates Corinne Cath Corinne Cath Affiliate Dr. Corinne Cath is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Corinne is an anthropologist interested in the politics of Internet infrastructure. Her PhD research analyses the culture of the often-opaque organisations that enable the technical functioning of the Internet, inevitably acting as political gatekeepers. Within that context, she focuses on the ability of human rights and civil liberties activists, to participate on par with industry engineers to shape the internet’s underpinning and the data that flows across it. Her professional interests include Internet Governance, Internet Freedom, Data Activism, Science and Technology Studies, Digital Anthropology, and bridging the divide between academics and practitioners. Corinne currently works as the Vice President of Research at the Open Tech Fund. Prior to finishing her PhD, Corinne worked as a program officer for the “Digital Team” of human rights NGO ARTICLE19 and as a policy advisor for the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C. Corinne has a BA in anthropology and an MA in International Relations from the University of Utrecht, and an MSc in Social Science of the Internet from the University of Oxford. Affiliates Johannes Lenhard Johannes Lenhard Affiliate Johannes Lenhard is an Affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. He is an ethnographer of inequality researching both homelessness and technology investors. He has since 2011 focused on understanding people sleeping rough and begging in London, Paris and Cambridge. His monograph Making Better Lives based on his PhD research in Paris was published in 2022 following an edited collection on Home. For his second research project, Johannes has since becoming the Centre Coordinator of the Max Planck Cambridge Centre for Ethics, Economy and Social Change in Cambridge in 2017, focused on venture capital investors. Based on intermittent fieldwork between Silicon Valley, New York, London and Berlin, he is currently writing his second monograph (The Kingmakers, under contract with Columbia UP) explaining VCs’ investment ethics. He writes regularly for journalistic outlets such as Sifted, Prospect and Techcrunch and is the co-author of Better Venture, a trade book on diversity and inclusion in tech and VC. Johannes is committed to translating his research findings into direct policy application and has recently co-founded CHIRN (Cambridge Homelessness Impact and Research Network) to facilitate impacting homeless policy and VentureESG to support the integration of Environment, Social and Governance principles in the VC ecosystem. Affiliates Sebastián Lehuedé Sebastián Lehuedé Affiliate Sebastián Lehuedé is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Sebastián is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge. Applying decolonial theory, his research examines the governance of digital technologies from a global social justice perspective. His current project focuses on emerging forms of resistance against the environmental harms caused by Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in Latin America. Sebastián was recently granted the 2022 Association of Internet Researchers Dissertation Award for his thesis on the governance of astronomy data in Chile. Sebastián is a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University and a member of the Tierra Común network of researchers and activists. Sebastián has worked with digital rights, environmental and Indigenous groups in Chile and Mexico, and has been invited to talks by organisations such as AlgorithmWatch and Oxfam. Affiliates Stefanie Ullmann Stefanie Ullmann Affiliate Stefanie Ullmann an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Stefanie studied English Linguistics and Web Technology at the University of Marburg in Germany. She completed her PhD in Linguistics focusing on a critical corpus-assisted study of media and political coverage of the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions. She is the author of the monograph Discourses of the Arab Revolutions in Media and Politics (Routledge, 2022). Stefanie’s overall research interests and background are in functional linguistics, critical theory and discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, new media and communication technologies as well as the instrumentalization of language in states of socio-political conflict and crisis. Her most recent work has focused on quarantining online hate speech, mis/disinformation, gender bias in machine translation, dynamic data statements and exploring counterspeech approaches to fighting dangerous speech. She is the editor of an upcoming anthology on counterspeech, which will be published in the Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society series. Affiliates Reema Patel Reema Patel Affiliate Reema Patel is an affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Reema is Head of Deliberative Engagement at global research agency Ipsos and director of the COP26 Global Science Partnership, specialising in exploring public attitudes on various topics through deliberative democracy processes. She leads a team focused on designing and executing deliberative initiatives like citizen juries and assemblies. Reema co-founded the Ada Lovelace Institute, authoring reports addressing data regulation, inequalities, biometrics, and participatory data stewardship. Her academic involvement includes a role as co-investigator and policy engagement lead of the ESRC Digital Good Network, leading citizen juries for the AHRC’s COVID-19 response and managing a Health Foundation-funded program on tackling health inequalities in data driven systems during the pandemic. She currently has several advisory roles including as a member of the Bank of England’s Central Bank Digital Currency Engagement Forum, a member of the OECD’s Innovative Citizen Participation Network, and as a commissioner on the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law’s Independent Commission on UK Public Health Emergency Powers. Outside work, she enjoys cricket and riverside walks in Cambridge. Affiliates Vita Peacock Vita Peacock Vita Peacock is an affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. She is an anthropologist working at the intersection of anthropology, sociology and history to examine contemporary developments in digital politics. Vita is currently Principal Investigator of the ERC Project Surveillance and Moral Community: Anthropologies of Monitoring in Germany and Britain, exploring why people use a range of monitoring technologies to advance projects they value, as well as the critiques of them. Vita own research collaborates with privacy and data protection advocates across Germany, to understand why it is home to comparatively strong privacy sentiment. She has held appointments at Cambridge, Columbia, Humboldt University, KCL, LMU Munich and UCL. Her research has been supported by the Royal Anthropological Institute, the AHRC, the ESRC, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and was awarded the EASA Early Career Award. She is co-founder and co-convenor of the Anthropology of Surveillance Network (ANSUR), which publishes regular podcasts on the anthropology of surveillance. Affiliates Paola Tubaro Paola Tubaro Visiting Fellow Paola Tubaro is a Visiting Fellow at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Paola is a research professor (Directrice de Recherche) in sociology and technology at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a professor at the National School of Statistics and Economics (ENSAE) in Paris. Trained as an economist before gradually transitioning to sociology, she practices inter-disciplinary research that critically leverages synergies between the social and computational sciences. She is currently studying the place of human work in the global production networks of artificial intelligence, with special focus on Latin America; social inequalities in digital platform labour; and data ethics. Paola is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Sociology and Revue française de sociologie. In 2022-23, she is a by-Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. Affiliates Darryl Stellmach Darryl Stellmach Darryl Stellmach is an Affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Darryl is Lecturer in Emergency Management at the University of Tasmania. His research focuses on disaster and emergency as social phenomena, in particular sociotechnical approaches to the epistemology of crisis. He has 20 years experience as a practitioner of humanitarian relief and emergency management, working for most of his career as a field coordinator and, later, research advisor, with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. Turning to academia mid-career, he completed his DPhil in Anthropology at the University of Oxford in 2016 and made the transition to full-time academics in 2022. For the past several years he has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate social science methods into global epidemic and disaster response communities. While recent epidemics have led to renewed policy recognition that the social sciences offer unique possibilities for rapid research in crisis conditions, the challenge is to maintain methodologically rigorous and ethical research in these circumstances. Thus, much of Darryl’s publication, teaching, and research supervision hinges on issues of evidence gathering and communication in emergency settings. Affiliates Miranda Cross Miranda Cross Affiliate Miranda Cross is an affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Miranda is a researcher focused on the implications of AI in the workplace, especially as they relate to governance. She recently completed an MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, where her thesis research focused on US labour unions’ responses to electronic surveillance of workers. Her current research is focused on digital inequities of algorithmic management in the workplace, the role of labour unions in shaping AI policy, and governance of data collection in the workplace. Miranda also currently works as a Policy Research Assistant at the Alan Turing Institute under Programme Director Prof Helen Margetts, helping to deliver an interdisciplinary research agenda in digital society and policy. Before returning to academia, Miranda worked for the Chief Technologist at the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on issues relating to emerging AI/ML technology in the financial sector, including algorithmic bias in loan origination and credit scoring. Previously, she was awarded a BA in Public Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University. Affiliates Jaimie Freeman Jaimie Freeman Jamie Freeman is an affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Jaimie is an interdisciplinary researcher studying the impact of technology on human behaviour and societal well-being. Jaimie holds a PhD from the University of Oxford, where she worked alongside teenagers to explore the social and psychological implications of young people’s use of self-tracking tools. Her doctoral research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Jaimie’s work centres on striving to improve user experiences while considering the social, psychological, and ethical dimensions of users’ interactions with technology. Her expertise spans areas such as online social behaviours, co-design methods, health technologies, smart toys, adolescents, and self-tracking. Prior to her doctoral studies, Jaimie earned a BA in English Literature and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Sydney. She also holds an MPhil in Psychology and Education from the University of Cambridge. Currently, Jaimie works as a User Experience Researcher at WhatsApp. Affiliates Cessiah Lopez Cessiah Lopez Affiliate Cessiah Lopez is an Affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. She has worked for multiple industries such as International Trade and Investment for the Philippine Embassy. Cessiah has also grown and developed multiple small businesses as a serial entrepreneur, and is a committed philanthropist. Holding an LLM from the University of East Anglia, her thesis focused on the applicability of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) to modern e-commerce. She has since worked as an Operations and Strategist for crypto and web3-based projects and is a recent ex-Founder at Entrepreneur First. Cessiah’s work lies at the intersection of law, web3, and startups, where she places significant emphasis on the importance of social impact and social mobility. Now, she is a Crypto Research Fellow for VentureESG, working to make ESG a standard part of due diligence for VCs in the web3 space. Affiliates Lorna Woods Lorna Woods Affiliate Lorna Woods is an affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Lorna is professor of internet law at the University of Essex and a member of the human rights centre there. Her expertise covers the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. Her work with Carnegie UK Trust on systems regulation and the statutory duty of care in respect of social media companies, which has influenced regulatory thinking in the UK and elsewhere, resulted in the award of an OBE. She is now part of the Online Safety Act Implementation Network. Professor Woods is a member of the ESRC peer review college and a fellow of the Royal Society for Arts. She is a member of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) National User Group, advising the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and the police. She was also a member of the IMPRESS Code Committee (2015-2020) and, a senior associate research fellow at the Information Law and Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. Lorna Woods on Mastodon Board Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford. His research is focused on the changing role of news and media in our societies. He has written extensively about journalism, digital media, the business of news, political communication, misinformation and related topics in dozens of scholarly articles, edited volumes, and books, including Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns (winner of the American Political Science Association’s Doris Graber Award for the best book on political communication published in the last ten years) and The Power of Platforms (with Sarah Anne Ganter). In addition, he is co-author of the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report. A frequent speaker at academic, industry, and policy-making conferences, he has provided expert advice to both governments and news media companies in several countries. His work has been covered by a wide variety of media all over the world, and he has written for El Pais, the Indian Express, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He tweets at @rasmus_kleis. Board John Naughton John Naughton Chair of the Advisory Board John is co-founder of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. By background a systems engineer, he is an academic and a newspaper columnist whose interests lie in the societal impact of digital technology. He is Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University, Director of the Wolfson Press Fellowship Programme and the Technology columnist of the *Observer*. At CRASSH, he was co-director (with Sir Richard Evans and Professor David Runciman) of a five-year Leverhulme-funded research project on Conspiracy and Democracy (2013–2018) and with David Runciman ran a two-year (2014–2016) research project on Technology and Democracy. He has written extensively on technology and its role in society, and is the author of a well-known history of the Internet — ‘A Brief History of the Future’ (Phoenix, 2000). His most recent book, ‘From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: what you really need to know about the Internet’, is published by Quercus. Board Steven Connor Steven Connor Advisory Board Steven Connor is the Director of CRASSH, Grace 2 Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He came to Cambridge in 2012, having been Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London and, from 2003 to 2012, Director of the London Consortium Graduate Programme in Humanities and Cultural Studies, a collaboration between Birkbeck and cultural institutions in the capital, including Tate, the British Film Institute, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Architectural Association and the Science Museum. He is a writer, critic and broadcaster, who has published 25 books and edited collections, on a wide range of topics, including Dickens, Beckett, Joyce, value, ventriloquism, skin, flies and the imagination of air. His most recent books are Living By Numbers: In Defence of Quantity (London: Reaktion/Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), Dream Machines (London: Open Humanities Press, 2017), The Madness of Knowledge: On Wisdom, Ignorance and Fantasies of Knowing (London: Reaktion/Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019) and Giving Way: Thoughts on Unappreciated Dispositions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019). He has recently completed The Force of Petition, a book about begging, praying, wooing, suing, wishing and other forms of belligerent debility, and is currently writing about the idea of seriousness. Please visit stevenconnor.com for a full list of publications, along with the texts of unpublished essays, broadcasts and lectures. Board Emily Bell (former board member) Emily Bell (former board member) Advisory Board Emily Bell is Founding Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, and a leading thinker, commentator and strategist on digital journalism. The majority of her career was spent at Guardian News and Media in London working as an award winning writer and editor both in print and online. As editor-in-chief across Guardian websites and director of digital content for Guardian News and Media, she led the web team in pioneering live blogging, multimedia formats, data and social media ahead, making the Guardian a recognised pioneer in the field. She is co-author (with C.W. Anderson and Clay Shirky) of Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present (2012), a trustee of the Scott Trust, the owners of The Guardian, a member of Columbia Journalism Review’s board of overseers, an adviser to Tamedia Group in Switzerland, chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on social media, and a member of Poynter’s National Advisory Board. Board Sheila Hayman Sheila Hayman Advisory Board Sheila Hayman has written and directed documentary films for the BBC, Channel 4, ARTE, Beijing TV and others, winning a BAFTA, Time Out Documentary Series of the Year, Arts Documentary of the Year nomination and a Robert Kennedy award. She has been UK Young Journalist of the Year, the BAFTA/Fulbright Fellow in Los Angeles and a columnist for The Guardian newspaper. Many of her films have focused on our relationship with technology. Her 1992 BBC film, ‘Horizon: The Electronic Frontier’ asked ‘What would the world look like with information as money?’ and foresaw ubiquitous surveillance, the computer in your pocket and DeepFakes, including their political risks. In 2017, as Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, she embarked on ‘Senseless’, about the difference between human and machine intelligence. In 2020 her work on the carbon footprint of ‘AI’ led to her being Artist in Residence at PIK Potsdam, Europe’s premier research institute on the climate emergency. She also coordinates a creative writing and performance group at UK NGO Freedom from Torture, working to help refugees as her father was helped in the 1930s. Board Richard Danbury Richard Danbury Advisory Board Richard Danbury is an academic lawyer, a journalist and a former practicing barrister. He directs the MA in investigative journalism at City University, London. He practised — briefly — as a criminal barrister before joining the BBC, where he worked for about a decade, based in News and Current Affairs, and specialising in interviews and investigations. He spent extended periods on programmes such as Newsnight and Panorama and the investigative documentary series Rough Justice. His last staff job was Deputy Editor of the 2010 BBC Prime Ministerial Debate. While at the BBC, he was part of teams that won two Royal Television Society Awards and a New York Festivals medal. He then went freelance, and has worked for Channel 4, Sky and ITN, producing interviews with just about every leader of a main UK political party since 2000, and has worked on TV coverage of the past five general elections. He has also coordinated Channel 4’s investigative journalism training scheme for the past six years, and has been the BBC’s Advanced Legal Trainer for the past nine years. He is a member of the Scott Trust Review Panel, the organisation that deals with editorial complaints in relation to the Guardian’s content. Board David Runciman (former board member) David Runciman (former board member) Advisory Board David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge, a Contributing Editor of the London Review of Books and hosts the podcast Talking Politics. He was co-director of the Technology and Democracy project that ran at CRASSH some years ago and is the founding Director of the Centre for the Future of Democracy in the Bennett Institute. He has written extensively on democracy — most recently in How Democracy Ends and is currently working on a book derived from his recent series of online talks, The History of Ideas. Board Diane Coyle Diane Coyle Advisory Board Diane Coyle is the inaugural Bennett Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge. She co-directs the Bennett Institute where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity, and has been a government adviser on economic policy, including throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Her latest book, Markets, State and People – Economics for Public Policy examines how societies reach decisions about the use and allocation of economic resources. Diane is also a Director of the Productivity Institute, a Fellow of the Office for National Statistics, an expert adviser to the National Infrastructure Commission, and Senior Independent Member of the ESRC Council. She has served in public service roles including as Vice Chair of the BBC Trust and as a member of: the Competition Commission; the Migration Advisory Committee; and the Natural Capital Committee. Diane was Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester until March 2018 and was awarded a CBE for her contribution to the public understanding of economics in the 2018 New Year Honours. Board Emma McDonald Emma McDonald Advisory Board Emma is the A/Executive Director of Impact Missions at Minderoo Foundation, which drives philanthropic initiatives to address global societal challenges with agility and tangible impact goals. She has over three decades of experience in regulatory and corporate affairs, policy development, communications, philanthropy, government relations, business and legal affairs, commercial negotiations, and business strategy. Her background includes roles such as General Counsel at several Australian media and television production companies, Director of Public Affairs at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and as Senior Policy Adviser to a Cabinet Minister, advising on broadcasting, news media, content and digital platforms, screen production, copyright, classification, and advertising regulation. Emma is a published author, having contributed articles and op-eds to prominent Australian newspapers and she authored a chapter in The Public Square Project: Reimagining Our Digital Future (Melbourne University Press 2021). Emma holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney.