Urs Gasser

Urs Gasser is the Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He teaches at Harvard Law School, at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and Fudan University School of Management (China). He is a visiting professor at KEIO University (Japan) and a Fellow at the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. Urs Gasser has written several books, is the co author of “Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives” (Basic Books, 2008, with John Palfrey) that has been translated into 10 languages (including Chinese), and has published over 70 articles in professional journals. His research and teaching activities focus on information law and policy issues. Current projects, several of them in collaboration with leading research institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, explore policy and educational challenges for young Internet users, the regulation of digital technology (currently with focus on cloud computing), ICT interoperability, information quality, the law’s impact on innovation and risk in the ICT space, and alternative governance systems. He graduated from the University of St. Gallen (J.D., S.J.D.) as well as Harvard Law School (LL.M.) and received several academic awards and prizes for his research.

John Palfrey

John Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. He is the co-author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (Basic Books, 2008) and Access Denied: The Practice and Politics of Internet Filtering (MIT Press, 2008). His research and teaching is focused on Internet law, intellectual property, and international law. He practiced intellectual property and corporate law at the law firm of Ropes & Gray. He is a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Outside of Harvard Law School, he is a Venture Executive at Highland Capital Partners and serves on the board of several technology companies and non-profits. John served as a special assistant at the US EPA during the Clinton Administration. He is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School.

Sandra Cortesi

Sandra Cortesi is a Fellow at the Berkman Center and the Director of the Youth and Media Project. She is responsible for coordinating the Youth and Media’s policy, research, and educational initiatives. At the new Youth and Media Lab Sandra works closely with talented young people and lead researchers in the field as they look into innovative ways to approach social challenges in the digital world, including the production and exchange of digital media, youth development in social networking, and digital citizenship. Together with Urs Gasser and the YaM team, she focuses on the topics of “information quality” and privacy, about which she has coauthored several publications. Sandra also examines a broad range of youth communication and information technology practices for insights into youth online behavior and emergent policy questions, where she applies her training as a cognitive scientist. Sandra continues to also be engaged in European projects in collaboration with the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Sandra has a Masters in Psychology, with a specialization in Neuro-Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction, from the University of Basel.

Team

Dena T. Sacco

Dena T. Sacco is a Senior Researcher with the Youth and Media Project, currently focusing on policy issues related to the research on teens, parents and privacy that the Berkman Center is conducting in connection with the Pew Research Center.  Dena’s past youth and media work includes coordinating and editing the Kinder and Braver World Research Series, participating in the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative, and co-directing the Internet Safety Technical Task Force.  Dena’s publications with these projects include “An Overview of State Anti-bullying and Other Relevant Laws,” “Sexting: Legal and Practical issues,” and “Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies: Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force.”

Meredith Beaton

Meredith joined the Youth and Media Lab to pursue her research interests in youth and Internet technologies and the role of education in media literacy. Meredith is a graduate of Columbia’s Teachers College, where she focused on gender disparities in computer science and online gaming. She spent the last five years teaching Middle School at the Cambridge Montessori School. Meredith also holds a BA in Computer Science from Wellesley College.

Luisa Beck
Luisa grew up in Germany and California. During and after her undergraduate years at UC Berkeley, she studied and worked in Chennai, Goettingen, Munich, Duesseldorf and New York. She’s most recently made her home in Somerville and is excited to explore questions surrounding youths’ use and interpretation of media, online collaborations, e-learning, civic engagement and the creative and infinite ways of using sound, visuals, words and data to teach and tell stories. She’s most interested in the kinds of stories that often get left by the wayside: the ones that test our experiences and assumptions about technology, cultures and human motivations. When she’s not at the Youth and Media Lab, you can find her making audio documentaries, asking Python questions on Stackoverflow or scoping out community art and civic engagement projects.

Paulina Haduong
Paulina Haduong is a senior linguistics major in Berkeley College at Yale University. She is interested in the intersection of education, technology, and art. She is a Co-Founder of the Sexual Literacy Forum at Yale and also enjoys playing violin, doing yoga, and taking pictures.

Nathaniel Levy
Nathaniel joined the Berkman Center in 2011, where he focuses on the Youth and Media project, which includes the youth-driven, R&D YaM Lab, and the center’s partnership with the Born This Way Foundation. Nathaniel contributes to research and programmatic efforts that explore how young people use technology and offer insights for educators, policymakers, and youth themselves. Prior to becoming a Project Coordinator, Nathaniel contributed to the report “Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality” as a Research Assistant.

Since leaving Brown with a History degree in December 2010, Nathaniel has also run intro computer classes for adult learners, contributed to open education projects based in Cambridge, and climbed Neutaconkanut Hill. He enjoys reading the Financial Times and science fiction.

Momin Malik
Momin Malik previously worked at the Youth and Media Lab from 2009-2011, where he was a co-author of the literature review “Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality.” In 2011-2012, he did a Masters at the Oxford Internet Institute, where he studied quantitative and qualitative research methods, digital social research, networks of collaboration, and online social networks. His thesis, which earned a distinction, examined the emergence of the field of Internet studies through networks of co-authorship. He has returned to the Youth and Media lab for the year, working to further the state of knowledge of young people’s online behavior and experiences with information quality. In the fall he will be starting a PhD, working in the areas of computational social science and network analysis.

Mary McCrossan
Mary McCrossan joined the Youth and Media team in January 2012 as an Digital Media Producer assistant. Mary graduated in the spring of 2011 with a BA in Broadcast Journalism from Suffolk University and is interested in social and digital media. She brings her experience in video editing to help the lab with media content creation.