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 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.