Interns 2012

Karim El Husseiny Karim El Husseiny is a recent graduate in Computer Sciences from Egypt. He is a web Developer and loves working on social networking development, especially with Rails/Sinatra web frameworks. He writes articles about Ruby On Rails on SitePoint.com. Karim has been selected as a student developer with the Google Summer of Code 2012 program to work at Berkman with the Youth & Media team. He believes in the Open Source philosophy and is enthusiastic about the Open Web. He is an active member of the Egyptian Ubuntu team and has introduced Ubuntu & Open Source Culture to the Egyptian community. He also helps groups of Ubuntu enthusiasts work together in regional teams to help develop and improve Ubuntu.Karim was a Google Student Ambassador with the GSA program in MENA fo the 2011/2012 academic year. In this role, he acted as liaison between Google and his university, hosting and organizing several events to bring awareness to Google’s products and programs.

Gabriele Fisher 
Gabriele Fisher is a rising senior at Phillips Academy Andover. She is primarily interested in how LGBTQ youths — in addition to other minority teen groups — build online communities using social media. Her research interests also include the use of the Internet in social activism and outreach. During the academic year, Gabriele leads her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, coordinates local community service projects, and serves as managing editor and satire columnist for Andover’s political magazine.
Mariel García Montes Mariel is a senior at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), where she is studying philosophy. Instead of tackling the problem of Knowledge, she wants to help society profit as much from the Internet as she has; that’s why she’s leaving philosophy school (though with a degree) and pursuing a path in the world of ICT for development.Youth and their relationship with media has been a big focus of her work during the last six years; as a guest of the ICRC mission in the southern Philippines, she reported on the situation of youth in armed conflict, and particularly their use of communication tools; she has collaborated with Global Changemakers on trainings and communication tools to empower young activists running hundreds of projects worldwide, and is currently working on a digital media literacy program for underprivileged girls in Mexico City.

Website: www.faeriedevilish.com

Kristen Guth

Kristen Guth is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.  She researches and teaches about communication, technology, organizations, and society.  Her research projects have focused on the role of communication in an online agricultural resource for farmers and distributors that spans 17 U.S. states as well as the communication of small groups experiencing new technologies in virtual collaboration.  Kristen enjoys working with people to understand effective design of technologies and information access.  Previously, she completed an MA in Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, and a BA cum laude in Communication at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC.  She has worked as a journalist for NBC in New York, a digital public relations professional for Edelman agency in Washington, DC, and a corporate public relations professional for UPS.  More information about Kristen can be found at her website.

Paulina Haduong

Paulina Haduong is a rising senior at Yale University, majoring in Linguistics. She is interested in the impact of technology on education, and how various forms of media can be used to effect social change. In the past, she has worked as a Teacher-Intern for Breakthrough Collaborative, and she is one of the co-founders of the Sexual Literacy Forum at Yale.

Rachel M. Magee

Rachel M. Magee is a doctoral student at the iSchool at Drexel, where she researches technology and information practices in everyday contexts, inspired by her experiences as a teen services librarian. Her dissertation investigates how home technology ecologies and family structures interplay with the use (and non-use) of technology. Within these environments, she is examining the ways young people find, access, use, create, and share information. Previously, she received her M.A. in Information Resources and Library Science from the University of Arizona, as well as a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a big fan of homemade pizza, stand-up comedy, and visiting the National Parks. Find out more at www.rachelmagee.com.

 Danaë Metaxa-Kakavouli

Danaë Metaxa-Kakavouli is a rising sophomore at Brown University studying computer science and gender studies. Danaë is interested in the way the Internet has shaped young people’s understanding and expectations of privacy, as well as in the way the Internet expresses gender dynamics and its potential as a force for gender equality. Danaë enjoys reading, traveling, and playing with cats.

Luca Piccin

Luca Piccin is a rising junior in the Honors College at the University of Vermont where he is majoring in political science with minors in both Italian and film. He is interested in how the Internet functions as a medium for creativity and the dissemination of ideas. In particular he is interested in how new digital media are changing the way we understand, view and create films.

Aimee Rickman

Aimee Rickman is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she studies the construction of adolescence and youth involvement in social media technologies. Her ethnographic dissertation looks at how online social involvement mediates youth marginality, and at how this involvement relates to socialization and resistance in Western adolescence and within Western society. She is particularly interested in rural adolescent-aged female users of technologies.

Marcos Sadao Maekawa

Marcos was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1973. After graduating in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo, he moved to Japan to work as a graphic and editorial designer. In 2010, Marcos earned a Masters degree in Media Design and is now a PhD student (D3), at Keio University. His research focuses on workshop design to stimulate global communication and global collaboration among younger generations using new media and communication technologies. He also works as a freelance writer/designer and Portuguese instructor. Marcos is a Brazilian who doesn’t drink coffee, can not play soccer, and can not dance samba, but loves cooking, Glee, Bossa Nova, karaoke and chatting with his 1.5 year old niece on Facetime.

Dino Sossi

Dino Sossi works across media. His stories have been broadcast on CBS, CNN, IFC and MTV Canada. They include Grammy-winning artists Rod Stewart, Nelly Furtado and The Doors as well as nominees Nickelback, Ja Rule, Stephen Page (Barenaked Ladies) and Sum 41. Dino previously worked at CNN and CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” where he assisted on stories involving Meryl Streep and Jeffrey Immelt (General Electric). Dino’s documentary films have screened at festivals in New York and Los Angeles as well as at the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge and Columbia. He reported for AOL and Toronto Star as well as published articles in the Globe & Mail. Dino was interviewed, along with Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim, regarding the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’” by Emmy Award-winner Katie Couric. Dino performed comedy with the Cambridge Footlights and across New York City clubs.

Dino studies Instructional Technology and Media at Columbia University. He earned his Master of Philosophy degree at the University of Cambridge. See more at www.dinosossi.com

Stephen Suen

Stephen Suen is a rising sophomore in the Comparative Media Studies undergraduate program at MIT, where he explores the intersections of technology and storytelling in both his coursework and his research with the Center for Civic Media and the GAMBIT Game Lab. His academic interests include fan and remix culture, transnational media flows, and pictures of cute cats. Outside of media studies, Stephen dabbles in product design and web development, and helps run 21CB, a (currently on-hiatus) blog covering Asian politics and pop culture.

David Tschapnizky

David Tschapnizky recently finished his Master’s degree in Psychology with a research focus on ‘Human Computer Interaction’ (HCI) at the University of Basel, Switzerland and will undertake his PhD after the adventure in Boston. He loves interactions that are intuitive, simple and make the users happy by suiting their needs. During his time at the university he was involved in several academic, commercial and private projects where he put the user’s needs in the center of attention with the goal of maximizing the user experience.

Jingwen Zhang

Jingwen Zhang is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania and is interested in health communication and social media, especially in youth sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention in developing countries. Her recent work has focused on youth Internet use for health information, and the influence of exposure to online sexual contents on youth sexual attitudes and behaviors. She received her B.A. in Journalism from Zhejiang University and M.A. in Professional Communication from Clemson University, where she taught freshmen composition incorporating digital media production. Prior to coming to the U.S., she also worked for several NGOs in China. She plans to work and research for international organizations focusing on youth health issues in the future. More information can be found at her website (http://www.wix.com/sallyzhangclemson/asc).

 

(Image source: http://www.simonscat.com/)