HELEN NISSENBAUM

Seda Gürses is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Media, Culture and Communications Department working on privacy, security, surveillance studies and requirements engineering. Recently, she has been empirically studying and critically reflecting on the assumptions and methods that inform prominent strands of privacy research within computer science. Further topics of interest in her research include questions of privacy and design in online social networks, anonymity as a cultural and technical phenomenon, feminist critique of computer science and activist use of information technologies. Previously Seda was a post-doctoral researcher at COSIC (Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography) in the Department of Electrical Engineering of the KU Leuven and, recently, a visiting researcher at the e-Humanities Group of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. At COSIC she acted as the coordinator of the interdisciplinary project SPION (Security and Privacy in Online Social Networks) funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation in Science and Technology (IWT). Seda received her PhD at the Department of Computer Science of the KU Leuven, her Master's degree in Informatics at the Humboldt University Berlin (Germany), her B.S. in Mathematics and B.A. in International Relations and Peace from the University of Redlands in the USA. She is also a member of the interdisciplinary arts-lab Constant based in Brussels and has taught courses at the Ecole de Recherche Graphique in Brussels and at the Piet Zwart Institute for Media Design and Communication in Rotterdam.

Nathan Newman is Microsoft Research Fellow of the Information Law Institute at New York University. He has been writing about public policy and the Internet for over fifteen years. From 1997-1999, Newman was Program Director at NetAction, where he was an early advocate for anti-trust scrutiny of Microsoft. Most recently, as Policy Director and then Executive Director of Progressive States Network from 2005-2010, he oversaw a state policy program to promote broadband. In the last year, he has worked with community groups in writing reports on the danger of state telecom deregulation. His current research at the Information Law Institute focuses on antitrust, Google and the ways behavioral profiling online can reinforces monopoly and expand general economic inequality in the economy. He received a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC-Berkeley and a J.D. from Yale Law School. His Ph.D. on Internet public policy and local economic development was turned into a book, Net Loss: Internet Prophets, Private Profits and the Costs to Community (2020). 

Heather Patterson is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and in the Information Law Institute at New York University. Patterson researches changing social norms regarding personal information sharing and expectations of privacy, with an eye toward developing policy solutions that facilitate context-appropriate information flow. She received a J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 2012 and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Washington in 2006. At Berkeley Law, Patterson worked within the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic to develop a framework for evaluating the privacy implications of biometric technologies such as face recognition, iris scanning, and gait recognition, and to develop privacy standards for emerging Smart Grid technologies before the California Public Utilities Commission. Prior to law school, Patterson used behavioral and neuroimaging techniques to assess the cognitive and neural basis of language perception, face recognition, and biological motion detection. She also holds an M.A. in linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.S. in neurobiology and physiology from Purdue University.

Joris van Hoboken is a Microsoft Research Fellow in the Information Law Institute at New York University. His research addresses law and policy in the field of digital media, electronic communications and the internet, with a focus on privacy and freedom of expression. Specific research interests include the regulation of selection intermediaries and new forms of publicity in the online environment, such as search engine and social media publicity, and the regulation of user data collection and use by online service providers and the implications thereof for privacy, data protection, access to information and competition. A transatlantic comparison of different regulatory approaches to the online environment is a central feature of his research and teaching. Van Hoboken is a specialist in European data protection and privacy law, search engine law and regulation and he regularly writes, teaches and presents on issues and developments in data protection, intermediary liability and freedom of expression on the Internet. Previously, Van Hoboken was a senior researcher at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands where he received a Ph.D. in 2012 for his thesis on search engines and freedom of expression. In 2008, Van Hoboken was a Visiting Researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He has a degree in Law (LL.M., 2006, cum laude) and Theoretical Mathematics (M.Sc., 2002, cum laude). Van Hoboken is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom.

Elana Zeide is a Microsoft Research Fellow at the Information Law Institute at New York University. She comes to the fellowship from a career as a sole practitioner representing a wide array of traditional and digital media clients. She previously served as a visiting professor at Yale University, teaching courses on free speech and the First Amendment, as legal analyst at Bloomberg LP, and as a litigation associate at Cravath Swaine & Moore LLC. She received her B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. and LL.M. in Taxation from New York University’s School of Law. Zeide also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and spent several years as a journalist in London and New York, writing for Rolling Stone, New York Magazine, and The Sunday Times, among others. She is interested in a broad range of privacy-related issues, including: jurisprudential efforts to reconcile the values of privacy and freedom of expression; privacy as a changing cultural norm and construct; and frameworks to facilitate technological innovation in education while preserving student privacy.

Malte Ziewitz is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and in the Information Law Institute at New York University. He researches the politics and practicalities of governance in, of and through digitally networked environments. Broadly based in Science and Technology Studies (STS), ethnography and public policy, he is currently finishing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford, a praxiography of reviewing, rating and ranking in healthcare and search engine optimization (SEO). As Principal Investigator, he headed the ESRC-funded “How’s My Feedback?" project, a collaborative design experiment to rethink and evaluate online review and rating websites. Previously, he was a McCloy Fellow at Harvard University, a Non-resident Fellow at the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen, and a Junior Researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research. Ziewitz holds a M.P.A. from Harvard University and a First State Exam in Law from the University of Hamburg.

Solon Barocas is a doctoral student in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He was previously a Program Associate at the Russell Sage Foundation, where he helped administer major research initiatives on intercultural contact, social inequality, and the social and political consequences of the war on terror. Earlier, he served as Deputy Editor of Millennium - Journal of International Studies, housed at the London School of Economics, where he also obtained his MSc in International Relations. His master's thesis, De/re/coding Security in 'Societies of Control:' Data-mining as Political Practice, was recently published in a special issue of the St Antony's International Review on "The Internet: Power and Governance in a Digitised World," which he also presented at a related conference co-hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute. Barocas graduated from Brown University with a BA in Art-Semiotics and International Relations. At the University's Watson Institute for International Studies, he worked for over two years on the Information, Technology, War, and Peace Project.

Luke Stark is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. A native of Toronto, Canada, Luke holds an Honours BA in History and English and an MA in History, both from the University of Toronto; he has been generously funded by the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Government of Ontario. Luke's research focuses on the history and philosophy of digital media technology and its role in regulating the everyday affective and emotional lives of individual users and broader publics; he is concurrently working on projects related to the changing dynamics of privacy and security in digital network environments, and is a member of the ILI's Privacy Research Group and a Principal with PRGLabs. Luke is also a Research Assistant for the National Science Foundation's Values in Design in the Future Internet Architecture project, headed by Helen Nissenbaum. Luke's academic pursuits have been complimented by work in Issues Management and Strategic Communications Planning for the Ontario Ministries of Health and Long-Term Care and Natural Resources; other highlights from an eclectic resume include forest ranger, sleep-away camp counsellor, and ranch hand.