Research Associates
Sebastian Benthall
Sebastian is a Core Developer of BigBang, an open source toolkit for studying communications data built on Scientific Python. He has a B.A. Cognitive Science from Brown University, is a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information, is Research Fellow at both the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech and the New York University, where he studies how large-scale data collection systems can be engineered to preserve personal privacy.
Silvia Semenzin
Silvia Semenzin is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Milan. She is currently researching hacktivism and hacker ethics and is interested in the influence that digital technologies have on political action, public debate and citizens’ mobilization as instruments for democracy.
Miren Gutiérrez
Passionate about human rights, journalism and the environment (with a weakness for fish), and optimistic about what can be done with data-based research, knowledge and communication. Prof. at the University of Deusto and Research Associate at the Overseas Development Institute. @gutierrezmiren. Keywords: data activism, human rights, enviroment, climate change
Hisham Almiraat
Hisham Almiraat is the founder of the Digital Rights Association, Morocco and former Advocacy Director at Global Voices. He has written extensively about human rights issues in the MENA region. His work covers issues of freedom of expression and privacy rights. Twitter @almiraat Keywords: mass surveillance, interception, psychological impacts, privacy
Frederike Kaltheuner
Frederike Kaltheuner is a PhD researcher with the DATACTIVE project at the University of Amsterdam. She holds an MSc from the University of Oxford, is a 2016 Transatlantic Digital Fellow and also works as a technology reporter. Twitter @fre8de8rike More here. Keywords: knowledge, algorithms, predictive analytics, ethics
Jonathan Gray
Jonathan’s research focuses on the politics of open data and public information. In addition to his role on the project, he is Director of Policy and Research at Open Knowledge. More about him can be found at jonathangray.org and he is on Twitter at @jwyg. Keywords:
Mahsa Alimardani
Mahsa has been doing research and work on Internet controls, policies and digital security in Iran for the past 4 years. She is currently finishing her Research Masters degree in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam while doing research with DATACTIVE. She is also the Iran editor for Global Voices. Follow her @maasalan. More here. Keywords: censorship, digital security, MENA social movements, information controls
Corinne Cath
Corinne J.N. Cath recently graduated from the Oxford Internet Institute as an MSc student. She has a BA in anthropology and an MA in International relations from the University of Utrecht. Her research focuses on the (im)possibility of instantiating human rights principles in Internet standards and protocols. Read more here.
Antonio Martella
Antonio is a PhD student at the Political Science Department of the University of Pisa. His research project is focused on political leaders, populism and social media. He graduated in Business communication and human resource policy and has a postgraduate master in “Big Data Analytics & Social Mining” by the University of Pisa along with the CNR of Pisa. Keywords: populism, political leaders, social media, big data.
Umberto Boschi
Umberto Boschi is currently enrolled in New Media and Digital Culture at the Utrecht University as a MA student. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Pisa. His research interests vary from Blockchain technologies to the imaginary of Open Data. You can contact him at u.boschi(at)students.uu.nl or find him on twitter: @vmbrt
Vidushi Marda
Vidushi’s research focuses on internet governance, human rights and the ethics and regulation of algorithmic decision making. With DATACTIVE, she is working on a project to study content regulation by internet platforms. A lawyer by training, she graduated with a B.A., LL.B (Hons.) degree in 2015.
Vasilis Ververis
Vasilis Ververis is a PhD candidate with the Humboldt University of Berlin. It researches the technical implications of Internet blocking infrastructure and works to reclaim self-hosted technical infrastructures and services, censorship circumvention, anonymity and antisocial media. You can reach it in an off-line occurrence or via old-school email communication. Contact: andz [at] torproject [dot] org with fingerprint.