Archive

  1. Nathaniel Lubin

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    Nathaniel Lubin has spent his career focused on digital strategy, technology, and politics. Recently, his work has centered on developing novel approaches to improving online discourse, building measurement tools, and combating misinformation. He founded Fellow Americans, a non-profit which creates and tests more effective digital content, focusing on topics like COVID-19 response, civic participation, and improved social trust while working with some of the largest progressive organizations. He is the CEO of Survey 160, a software product designed to source data for polling and research. His consulting firm has assisted more than 30 startups, major corporations, foundations, and advocacy organizations working to leverage technology and digital tools to better communicate with key audiences. Nathaniel previously was the Director of the Office of Digital Strategy at the White House where he led a team of strategists and practitioners to modernize the way the White House engaged and communicated with the American public. Before that, he served as Director of Digital Marketing at Obama for America in 2012 where he led the largest paid digital fundraising, persuasion, and outreach programs yet run in politics with a budget of more than $112 million. Nathaniel also worked on President Obama’s 2008 campaign and helped launch Bully Pulpit Interactive, a leading digital marketing firm. Originally from New York, Lubin is an honors graduate from Harvard University.

     

    Twitter: @natelubin

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Social media has an unprecedented ability to capture attention and influence entire populations, leading to calls for greater accountability from companies to limit the potential harms these technologies can create. In a forthcoming paper, “Accountability Infrastructure for Recommendation Systems: Methods for Identifying and Mitigating Structural Harms Created by System Architecture,” Nathaniel Lubin and collaborators present a framework for tech companies to move beyond content moderation and create enduring systemic change within their platforms to address concerns around social media.

  2. Ben Grosser

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    Artist Ben Grosser creates interactive experiences, machines, and systems that examine the cultural, social, and political effects of software. Recent exhibition venues include Somerset House in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, SXSW in Austin, Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, Museu das Comunicações in Lisbon, Museum Kesselhaus in Berlin, Science Gallery in Dublin, Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo, and the Digital Arts Festival in Athens. His works have been featured in The New Yorker, Wired, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, PBS, Fast Company, BBC, The Telegraph, Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, Der Spiegel, El País, and Folha. The Guardian (UK), writing about his recent film ORDER OF MAGNITUDE, said “there will be few more telling artworks [from] the first decades of this century … a mesmerising monologue, the story of our times.” Speaking about his social media-focused projects, RTÉ (Ireland) described Grosser as an “antipreneur.” Slate referred to his work as “creative civil disobedience in the digital age.” Grosser’s artworks are regularly cited in books investigating the cultural effects of technology, including The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, The Metainterface, and Investigative Aesthetics, as well as volumes centered on computational art practices such as Electronic Literature, The New Aesthetic and Art, and Digital Art. Grosser is an associate professor of new media in the School of Art + Design and co-founder of the Critical Technology Studies Lab at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

     

    Twitter: @bengrosser  Github: @bengrosser

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Motivated by the insight that social media platforms are designed to keep users on an endless quest for more—more updates, more likes, more content—Ben Grosser’s Minus asks what users would do with less. Minus allotts users just 100 posts–for life, aiming to create an online space that mimics the finite time and resources we have in the physical world. Since launching in 2021, Minus has gained thousands of users and hosted tens of thousands of posts and comments.  Ben’s time as an RSM Assembly Fellow was devoted to in-depth analysis of Minus as a platform, which teased out how the affordances of constrained social media platforms encourage different sorts of interactions and conversations among users.

     

  3. Javier Agüera

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    Javier Agüera is an inventor and social entrepreneur passionate about humane technology design. At age 15, he co-founded Geeksphone, the first European smartphone maker to introduce Android and later the first worldwide to launch FirefoxOS. His second venture, Blackphone, was recognized among 2014’s Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies by MIT Technology Review for its pioneering private-by-design consumer device. Other ventures included Neupic, which focused on facilitating the work of journalists in conflict areas, and Barbara IoT, which protects critical infrastructure and recently completed its Series A financing. He most recently served as VP of Strategic Partnerships for Snips.ai (now part of Sonos). Javier is also an involved member of social impact communities such as Sandbox and the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers; and serves as a pro-bono advisory board member of Eyewitness for Atrocities, a non-profit supported by the International Bar Association. In the past, he was a Young Adviser to Neelie Kroes, former VP of the EU’s European Commission. He is currently a Fall 2022 candidate for a Master’s in Integrated Design and Management (IDM) at MIT. He is also a Teaching Fellow for 24.133 Experiential Ethics and a SERC Scholar at MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    The digital age has created a new predicament for parents: when should a child be introduced to smartphones, and how can parents ensure their child’s relationship with the device is a healthy one? Tempok, developed by social entrepreneur Javier Agüera, is a framework that turns the gifting of a child’s first smartphone into a rite-of-passage ritual that encourages families to create positive habits and boundaries by focusing on trust and autonomy.  Javi conducted interviews with dozens of parents and families, synthesized existing research, and developed Tempok’s offerings and roadmap during his time as an RSM Assembly Fellow.  Tempok will launch as a public benefit corporation in late 2023.      

  4. Kathryn Hymes

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    Kathryn Hymes is a computational linguist, technologist and game designer. At the Berkman Klein Center’s Institute for Rebooting Social Media, she studies how play can contribute to a better, more humane digital life. Previously she was the head of international product expansion at Slack and an advisor at Airtable. She now works in humanitarian tech at Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Kathryn is a co-founder of Thorny Games (https://thornygames.com/), a design studio that explores the stories behind the language we speak. Her studio is a multi-time “Game of the Year” award winner (Silver Ennie Game of the Year at Gen Con, Tabletop Game Prize at Indiecade Europe). Kathryn regularly speaks about technology, language and play at conferences (SXSW, GDC), at museums (Museum of the Moving Image, Planet Word), and universities (Stanford, University of Chicago). Recent external collaborations include the Aphasia Games for Health initiative (https://www.aphasiagamesforhealth.com/), a co-design project between aphasia community members, speech language pathologists, and game designers. Her writing on language, technology, and music has appeared in The Atlantic, Wired, and The New York Times. Kathryn holds an MS in Computational and Mathematical Engineering from Stanford, an MA in Linguistics from Stanford, and a BS in Math from UCLA. She was a Fulbright Fellow for math in Budapest, Hungary.

     

    Twitter: @katehymes

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    It’s hard to talk about hard things online, and the structure and incentives of social media platforms aren’t making these critical discussions any easier. Kathryn Hymes’ project uses principles of game design, in service of conversation design, in service of platform design—informed by principles of close listening, equal participation, and active communication—to develop a framework meant to encourage better conversations online. Kathryn’s time as an RSM Assembly Fellow was spent designing, playtesting, and refining a game pilot which incorporated these elements and aims.

  5. Elodie Vialle

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    Elodie Vialle is a journalist working at the intersection of Journalism, Technology and Human Rights. She is a Berkman Klein Center Affiliate, a Consultant on Digital Safety and Free Expression at PEN America, a Member of the Coalition Against Online Violence and a Member of the Journalism Safety Research Network. As a press freedom defender focusing on online abuse of journalists, she has a unique holistic approach to the topic; producing research, resources for journalists and emergency protocols for newsrooms, training international journalists, engaging with social media platforms, academics, policy makers and wider audiences. During her time with the Institute, Elodie will work on building an escalation channel and a system of individualized trauma-informed support for journalists in the midst of an attack on social media. Elodie was previously a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan and the Head of the Technology Desk at Reporters without Borders in Paris, where she monitored emerging threats undermining journalism and developed projects to defend the freedom of online information. As an international media consultant, she has supported newsrooms and journalists facing digital challenges worldwide for the last 12 years. Elodie began her career as a TV journalist. She was also the Editor-in-chief of an online media dedicated to social innovation and hosted a program on change-making initiatives at the national French radio France Inter.

     

    Twitter: @elodievialle

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Journalists and human rights defenders–particularly women and people from marginalized groups–experience online abuse at alarming rates. Building off of a recent workshop and closed-door discussions with industry experts, Elodie Vialle worked to address this issue with the Escalation Channel 2.0, a third-party system that allows professionals facing severe online abuse to raise their case within social media platforms while simultaneously accessing hands-on, trauma-informed support. This culminated in a long-form working session with Meta, civil society organizations, and academic institutions, focused on developing discrete interventions and updates to Meta’s existing journalism resources.

  6. Samuel Brasil

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    Samuel Brasil is an Associate Professor at the National School for the Judiciary and currently serves as an Associate Justice at Espirito Santo State Supreme Court. He is also a Professor at the LL.M. in Legal Theory at Goethe University Frankfurt and the leader of a research group on digital justice. He holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of São Paulo and a Master’s in Computer Science from the Federal University of Espirito Santo. He received awards for his projects on artificial intelligence and digital innovation. His current research interest lies at the intersection of technology, law, ethical AI, and algorithmic fairness.

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Social media is rife with discriminatory speech that negatively impacts victims and discourages meaningful engagement. Samuel Brasil’s KindLines is a browser extension that, when downloaded on a user’s device, identifies discriminatory language before a post is published and offers the user a chance to rewrite their post without biased content. By giving users a second chance to think about their post and the potential harms it may cause, KindLines aims to foster a safer and more inclusive digital environment.

  7. Kesa White

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    Kesa White is a Program Research Associate at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) located at American University. In addition to her role at PERIL, she is a fellow at the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC) and the Extremism and Gaming Research Network. Ms. White received her B.A. degree in International Studies with a concentration in Foreign Policy and National Security and M.S. degree in Terrorism and Homeland Security from American University. Kesa’s research primarily focuses on violent far-right extremism, hate, and content moderation. In her spare time, Ms. White enjoys spending time with her dog Fendi, traveling, and riding her Peloton.

     

    Twitter: @whitekesa

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Hate speech and extremist language online are often shrouded in ever-shifting context and double meaning that are nearly impossible for moderators to effectively track. Relying on Kesa White’s expertise as a researcher of online extremism and a database of masked terms that she constructed, D3COD3 is a browser extension that identifies this intentionally coded language, giving both content moderators and general users insight into the potential threats they present.

  8. Erlyn Rachelle Macarayan

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    Erlyn Rachelle Macarayan, PhD, MS, RN is Vice President of Data Science in a start up social media company. For the past years, she has also been a social media consultant for Health Systems Global. She also was an adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at Brown University School of Public Health. She has worked extensively in the public health and the health data science fields with many years of experience as an advisor and consultant to various international organizations, including industries. She is an esteemed public health researcher who leads multi-collaborative, multi-sectoral, and global research projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization, among others. She has also worked as Advisor in Data Science at CVS Health Corporation and was a research scientist at The Harvard University School of Public Health, where she also did her postdoctoral research. She holds a masters and PhD in public health and is a trained cardiovascular and renal nurse.

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Internet users generate vast amounts of personal data that are collected and sold for a profit, yet most people don’t fully understand the risks (and benefits) associated with these practices. Lyn Macaryan’s Project Sibol aims to introduce users to the complex world of data exchanges by aggregating info about data breaches and sharing information about the opt-out procedure throughout the data broker ecosystem while providing industry groups with guidelines on how to develop better standards for security and protection.  

  9. Marissa Gerchick

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    Marissa Gerchick is a data scientist and researcher focused on the intersection of technology and consumer protection issues, especially related to machine learning and algorithmic decision-making systems. Marissa has worked on technology policy problems in civil society, in government, at machine learning startups, and at interdisciplinary research labs. Previously, Marissa was a Technology Fellow in the U.S. Senate through the TechCongress program, working on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee. Marissa has also worked at Hugging Face, where she worked on improving the documentation of machine learning models with model cards, and at the Stanford Computational Policy Lab, where she used statistical tools to analyze policy decisions. Marissa holds a B.S. in Mathematical and Computational Science and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering (focused on Computational Social Science), both from Stanford University.

     

    Twitter: @mkgerchick

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    Dozens of tech bills are introduced to Congress each year, often using different terms to refer to the same entities, or using the same terms but defining them in different ways.  Marissa Gerchick’s term tabs helps staffers, area experts, and the general public sift through this dense web by organizing the terms and definitions used in proposed and enacted bills.  Users can view the cleaned data on the Term Tabs site, or download it for themselves to study emerging consensuses on certain term definitions, the differences between definitions in Republican, Democratic, and bipartisan bills, or any other relevant research question.   

  10. Sahar Massachi

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    Sahar Massachi was born in Israel to two refugees from Iran, and grew up in Rochester, New York. During a four year stint at Facebook, he worked on the civic integrity team, which protected elections and deepened civic engagement worldwide. Before that, he ran the data for fundraising at Wikipedia, founded two prosocial startups, and served as the founding data scientist at Grovo Learning. Since then, Sahar became a fellow (now affiliate) at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He’s a member of the advisory committee of the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice, a StartingBloc fellow, and a Roddenberry Fellow. Sahar is the co-founder and executive director of the Integrity Institute. He lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, with his beloved.

     

    Twitter: @sayhar

     

    Assembly Fellowship Project:

    If we’re going to reboot social media, Sahar Massachi believes we’ll need access to a critical resource: integrity expertise. Integrity professionals are tech workers with experience addressing and mitigating harms to people and societies within social Internet platforms. The Integrity Institute, co-founded by Sahar in 2021, brings these individuals together as part of an organization that aims to create a social internet where people, societies, and democracies thrive.  As both a think-and-do tank and a community of practice, the Institute Integrity advises policymakers, companies, and academics, while developing best practices for the profession at large.  Sahar’s time as an RSM Assembly Fellow was spent building out the Integrity Institute’s operations and expanding its community during a key period for the trust and safety space.