CDT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- President
- Vice Chair of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation
Alexandra Reeve Givens is the CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization fighting to protect civil rights and civil liberties in the digital age. She is a frequent public commentator on ways to protect users' online privacy and access to information, and to ensure emerging technologies advance human rights and democratic values.
Alex serves as Vice Chair of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. She holds a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. You can find her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Job Titles:
- Policy Analyst
- Policy Analyst, Free Expression Project
Aliya Bhatia is a policy analyst on CDT's Free Expression team, which works to promote users' free expression rights in the United States and around the world. Aliya works on issues regarding online safety and content moderation, and is dedicated to upholding media freedom and creative expression online.
Before joining CDT, Aliya worked at Ranking Digital Rights, a non-profit research organization that evaluates the policies and practices of the world's largest technology companies, where she worked to bridge the work of civil society, the press, and the public to hold corporate power accountable.
She also worked on the first digital decennial census in 2020 as a policy and campaigns manager with the Association for a Better New York, coordinating a state-wide campaign to ensure access to the census with over 150 community-based, corporate, and public institutions. On the census, she particularly worked on issues related to privacy, disinformation, and organizational security and worked to increase census completion rates amongst undocumented communities, communities of color, and communities who lived in low-digital access zones. She comes to this work having worked in immigrants rights, political campaigning, and youth engagement in Toronto and New York.
Originally from India, Aliya holds a masters degree from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto, having studied international relations and art history. You can follow her at @aliyabhatia.
Job Titles:
- Senior Counsel With CDT 's Data
- Senior Counsel, Privacy & Data
Andrew Crawford is a Senior Counsel with CDT's Data and Privacy Project. In addition to advocating for comprehensive federal privacy legislation, Andrew's work focuses on the intersection of technology, health data, and privacy. He led the development of CDT's Consumer Privacy Framework for Health Data along with the associated paper that identifies and suggests ways that privacy protections can benefit everyone, including underrepresented and overlooked communities harmed by current health data practices.
Prior to joining CDT, Andrew was Counsel to U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE). In this role, Andrew primarily focused on Judiciary Committee matters, including, privacy, technology, law enforcement, nominations, immigration, and telecommunications. Before his time on the Hill, Andrew worked in the Office of International Affairs within the U.S. Justice Department where he assisted with criminal extraditions and international evidence sharing. Andrew holds a B.A. from New York University and a J.D. from Villanova University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Partner
Job Titles:
- Director of Communications
Ari Goldberg serves as CDT's Director of Communications, overseeing the organization's messaging and strategy with external stakeholders. Ari has nearly two decades of communications experience inside the Beltway, both on and off the Hill. He has developed and managed national media strategies on issues ranging from election security and paid family leave to global hunger and extreme poverty.
Ari began his career as a news producer and online reporter for BBC News in Jerusalem. He came to Capitol Hill as an American Political Science Association journalism fellow and served as United States Rep. Jerrold Nadler's (NY-10) press secretary. He also led communications efforts for the ONE Campaign, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, CARE USA, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Ari has a B.A. in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.Phil in Hebrew literature from Cambridge University.
Job Titles:
- Policy Counsel for Disability Rights
- Policy Counsel, Disability Rights in Technology Policy
Ariana Aboulafia is the Policy Counsel for Disability Rights in Technology Policy, where she leads CDT's work in studying the ways in which certain technologies, including hiring algorithms and algorithmic surveillance, can impact disabled people, and advancing policy that protects their digital and civil rights.
An attorney with a strong background in holistic and community-centered public interest advocacy, Ariana previously served as an officer to the Journalism Department at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where she oversaw a grant portfolio focused on providing legal services to journalists, enhancing journalist safety, and protecting the First Amendment. She has also served as an assistant public defender in Miami-Dade County, where she provided direct representation to clients facing both misdemeanor and felony criminal charges. Ariana holds a bachelor's degree in political science and law, history and culture from the University of Southern California, as well as a J.D. with a concentration in social justice and public interest from the University of Miami School of Law. While at Miami Law, Ariana served as a fellow to the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, where her work included research to further their goal of combating online abuse and protecting civil liberties in online spaces.
Ariana's academic works have been featured in several publications, including the University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy and the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, in topics ranging from consumer privacy and technology to hyper-viral police violence. Recently, she presented her research on the First Amendment at the Free Expression Scholars Conference at Yale University; in 2019, her paper on the criminalization of LGBTQ+ homelessness was honored by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. She is on the Board of Directors of SAVE LGBT, the longest-running LGBTQ+ rights organization in South Florida, and serves as a member of Legal Services of Greater Miami's Young Professionals Council.
Job Titles:
- Advocacy Director for Europe, Online Expression & Civic Space
Asha Allen serves as Advocacy Director for Europe, Online Expression & Civic Space at CDT Europe Office in Brussels, where she leads our work on issues at the intersection of online expression, civic engagement, and technology. Asha's work focuses on advocating for the preservation of fundamental rights in European Union/Regional legislation, and democratic accountability in industry content policies.
Asha came to CDT as an intersectional digital rights advocate, with an extensive background in combating online gender based violence, having worked on projects with the United Nations, Council of Europe and OSCE. She coordinated the #HerNetHerRights II campaign which aimed to increase women's safety and participation online during the European elections. Reaching over 3 million people, she established herself as the leading policy expert in this field in Brussels.
Asha emerged into this area having worked as policy officer in the field of gender-based and domestic violence, and as an independent researcher, she has published analyses on the intersection between online discourse and the securitisation of migration, and the online facilitation of human trafficking. In her spare time, Asha is one of six women who front the Who Writes the Rules Campaign, which advocates for increased participation of women of colour in EU policy making and the tech industry.
Asha completed an internship in the European Parliament and holds a BA in American Studies and MA in Transnational Studies from the University of Kent. Alongside an MSc in European Studies from KU Leuven, where she specialised in transnational and global perspectives, international human rights law, and EU policy making.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Chairman, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips Board of Directors and Leader, Manatt Health
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Lead Research Scientist, Cyber Security Policy & Research Institute / George Washington University
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Professor and Faculty Director, Center on Privacy and Technology
DeVan Hankerson Madrigal is CDT's Research Manager, as well as an advocate for improving technology access to expand individual rights and for ensuring that more people share in the benefits of technological progress. At CDT, DeVan joins a research team focused on advancing human rights and civil liberties online.
DeVan comes to CDT from the Institute for Technology Law & Policy at Georgetown Law, where she developed research on ensuring digital access for students with disabilities during COVID-19, as well as on the impact of digital exclusion on artificial intelligence R&D. She also served as director of external communications and worked alongside the Tech Institute Distinguished Fellows to produce a technology and broadband policy podcast called "Tech on the Rocks."
DeVan has spent her career working on communications policy and regulatory matters that expand consumer-side benefits derived from technology-based progress and innovation. She brings experience both in third-party coalition management and policy advocacy as a former Senior Director of Public Policy and Government Relations with the Goodfriend Group, a government relations, public policy, and digital advocacy firm. She began her D.C. career in the public interest sector with the advocacy organization Multicultural Media, Telecom, and Internet Council (MMTC), where she led research on technology access issues with a specific focus on the impact of disruptive technologies, as well as worked on strategic advocacy championing the broad deployment of critical communications infrastructure. Prior to her time in D.C., DeVan worked abroad on cross-border trade issues at the Dubai Chamber of Commerce (UAE) and with an Amman-based NGO (Jordan) on economic inclusion and gender equality issues.
DeVan holds an M.A. in International Trade Policy (M.P.P.) from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and a B.A. in Psychology and Linguistics from Vassar College. You can find her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Dhanaraj Thakur is Research Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology, where he leads research that advances human rights and civil liberties online. Over the last 15 years, he has designed and led research projects that have significantly informed tech policy and helped improve the way public policy problems are framed.
He has been interviewed and his work quoted in several news media, including WIRED, CNN, the WSJ, the Economist, the Guardian (UK), and the Financial Times, among others. In addition, he has published over 40 peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers.
He is currently a member of the Technology Policy Research Conference program committee and the advisory board of #ShePersisted. A former Fulbright scholar, Inter-American Development Bank scholar, and ISOC Ambassador, Dhanaraj previously led research at the World Wide Web Foundation, focusing on broadband access and affordability, gender equality online, and open data.
Prior to that he was a member of the political science faculty at Tennessee State University and the University of the West Indies (Mona, Jamaica). He holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), and is a graduate of the London School of Economics, the University of the West Indies, and the University of Technology in Jamaica.
Job Titles:
- Senior Manager of Development & External Affairs
Elizabeth Dickson, CFRE (she/her) is the Senior Manager of Development & External Affairs at CDT, overseeing foundation and institutional fundraising efforts. She has 9 years of experience in nonprofit fundraising, including building relationships with individual, corporate and foundation donors; grants management; donor stewardship; and events fundraising. She obtained her Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) certification in 2021.
Prior to joining CDT in October 2023, Elizabeth was the Director of Development at the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit focused on fostering First Amendment freedoms for all. In this role, she focused on individual and corporate giving, leading the fundraising for their annual Free Expression Awards and providing support and stewardship to Major Gifts and Foundation donors.
Elizabeth holds a Bachelors of Science in Journalism from Ohio University (Athens, OH), and spent her first year out of college as a news reporter for a local daily newspaper covering everything from crime to human interest stories.
Born and raised in Medina, OH, just outside of Akron and Cleveland, she has called the Washington, D.C. area home since 2015. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, baking and curling up with Cocoa (her Scottish Terrier puppy) while reading a good book.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director, Equity in Civic Technology
Elizabeth Laird serves as CDT's Director, Equity in Civic Technology, where she leads the organization's work in this critical area. Building on the work she leads in CDT's Student Privacy Project, her work engages civic institutions to promote the responsible, equitable use of data and technology to improve outcomes for individuals and the public good, while ensuring it does not come at the expense of privacy and civil rights.
Prior to joining CDT, Elizabeth served as deputy assistant superintendent of data, assessment, and research at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), DC's state education agency. In that role, she served as OSSE's privacy officer and led the implementation of student privacy training for all staff, reviewed and approved data requests and data systems application releases, and provided guidance to staff on how to collect and protect student data. Before joining OSSE, she was accepted into The Broad Residency in Urban Education and worked at the Louisiana Department of Education where she oversaw the implementation of a restrictive student privacy bill. She began her career in education data and privacy at the Data Quality Campaign, where she worked for seven years, most recently as the director of communications and external affairs.
Elizabeth holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University, a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Master of Education in Educational Leadership from The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems.
Job Titles:
- Development Manager, Individual Giving & Events
As a member of the Development & External Affairs team, Elizabeth (she/her) works to connect individual interests with the incredible work CDT does to promote civil rights and democratic values. She manages the Individual Giving program, including the Impact Fund and major gifts, as well as Tech Prom, CDT's 1,000+-person annual event. Her work also encompasses donor communications, Board relations, corporate relations, and database management.
Prior to joining CDT in July 2019, Elizabeth was the Development Associate at Society for Science & the Public, supporting the Individual Giving & Membership team, as well as the Major Gifts team.
Elizabeth holds a bachelor's degree in Art and Architectural History from Roger Williams University (Bristol, RI) and a master's degree in Museum Studies with a focus on nonprofit administration and fundraising from the Cooperstown Graduate Program at SUNY Oneonta (Oneonta, NY). You can typically find her with her nose in a book or walking her pups around the shoreline of southeastern Connecticut.
Elizabeth Seeger is the Communications Manager at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), where she is responsible for conducting media relations and developing and enacting communications strategy.
Elizabeth has been with CDT since 2014, and previously completed internships with Sony Corporation of America and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Elizabeth graduated cum laude and with University Honors from American University's College of Arts & Sciences. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Computer Science.
Job Titles:
- Director of CDT 's Free Expression Project
- Director, Free Expression Project
- Member of the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network
Emma Llansó is the Director of CDT's Free Expression Project, where she works to promote law and policy that support Internet users' free expression rights in the United States, Europe, and around the world. Emma's work spans many subjects, including human trafficking, privacy and online harassment, online child safety, terrorist propaganda, and disinformation. In particular, she focuses on the capabilities and limitations of machine learning techniques and other forms of automation in content moderation and analysis of online speech.
Emma leads CDT's work focused on protecting fundamental rights to freedom of expression and preserving strong intermediary liability protections as a core element of legal frameworks that support free expression online. This work includes legislative advocacy, amicus activity, and engagement in multistakeholder initiatives. Emma frequently shares her expertise on panels, roundtables, and other events, as well as through interviews in print, radio, television, and online.
Emma also works with user-generated content services and other stakeholders to develop content policy best practices, including meaningful transparency, appeals, and remedy procedures. Among other projects, Emma was deeply involved in the development of the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation.
Emma is a member of the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network, the Christchurch Call Advisory Network, and has served on the Board of the Global Network Initiative. Emma also represents CDT on the Twitch Safety Advisory Council and the Twitter Trust & Safety Council.
Emma earned a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Delaware and a J.D. from Yale Law School, and is a member of the New York State Bar. Emma joined CDT in 2009.
Job Titles:
- Co - Director of the Privacy & Data Project
- Co - Director, Privacy & Data Project
Eric Null is the Co-Director of the Privacy & Data Project at CDT. Prior to joining CDT in January 2022, he was the United States Policy Manager at Access Now, an international human rights organization, where he oversaw tech and digital rights policy in the U.S., particularly around data protection, connectivity, and content moderation. While there, Eric expanded the data protection work to include states and agencies in addition to Congress.
Prior to Access Now, Eric was senior policy counsel focusing on privacy and connectivity at New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI), where he helped develop the consumer privacy program and advocated for internet openness and affordable and ubiquitous broadband. Prior to OTI, Eric was senior staff attorney at the Institute for Public Representation, a public interest law firm and legal clinic housed in Georgetown Law, where he worked on a broad range of tech policy issues on behalf of public interest clients. He also taught classes to clinic students on both legal skills and substantive areas of law. He earned an LL.M. from Georgetown Law, a J.D. from Cardozo Law, and a B.A. in political science from the University of Vermont.
Job Titles:
- Software Engineer
- Research Fellow
Gabriel Nicholas is a Research Fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology where his research focuses on automated content moderation and data governance. He is also a joint fellow at the NYU School of Law Information Law Institute and the NYU Center for Cybersecurity.
Gabriel is a software engineer by training and has a Masters in Information Management and Systems from the UC Berkeley School of Information. His written work has appeared in academic journals, law reviews, and journalistic outlets, including The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate, and Wired. His website can be found here.
Job Titles:
- Senior Counsel
- General Counsel, & Senior Counsel for Competition Policy
George Slover is Senior Counsel for Competition Policy at CDT, and CDT's General Counsel.
George comes to CDT with three decades of antitrust and competition policy experience, most recently as Senior Policy Counsel at Consumer Reports. Earlier in his career, he was Lead Antitrust Counsel at the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney-Advisor for Legal Policy at the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, Advisor to the Antitrust Modernization Commission, and Chief Legislative Counsel and Parliamentarian at the House Judiciary Committee. He is a member of the American Antitrust Institute's Advisory Board, and an elected member of the American Law Institute.
George holds a BA in mathematics from Vanderbilt University, a JD from the University of Texas School of Law, and a Masters in Public Affairs from the LBJ School.
Job Titles:
- Senior Counsel and Director of the Security and Surveillance Project
- Senior Counsel and Director, Security and Surveillance Project
Gregory T. Nojeim is a Senior Counsel and Director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, D.C. non-profit public policy organization dedicated to keeping the Internet open, innovative and free. He specializes in protecting privacy in the digital age against intrusion by the U.S. government, and is a recognized expert on the PATRIOT Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the application of the Fourth Amendment to electronic surveillance in the national security, intelligence, and criminal arenas.
Greg directs CDT's initiatives that respond to the 2013 disclosures about NSA surveillance and was engaged in CDT's successful efforts to promote the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015, the bill that ended bulk collection of telephone call records under the PATRIOT Act. Nojeim also spearheaded CDT's initiative to promote judicial supervision of surveillance conducted under 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
He is the lead strategist for CDT's cybersecurity work, testifying in both the House and Senate on the impact of cybersecurity proposals on privacy, civil liberties, and technology innovation. Greg authored "Cybersecurity and Freedom on the Internet" published in the Journal of National Security Law and Policy. He is also deeply involved in a multi-year, broad-based project to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to account for new technologies, and is the President of Digital 4 th, a coalition formed around ECPA reform.
Greg sits on the Board of Directors of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder group of companies, human rights and press freedom organizations, academics and investors who collaborate to advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector. He is a member of the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee which advises the Department of Homeland Security on privacy matters. As Co-Chair of the Coordinating Committee on National Security and Civil Liberties of the American Bar Association's Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities, he was one of the lead drafters of the ABA's 2007 policy on the state secrets privilege.
Prior to joining CDT in 2007, Greg was the Associate Director and Chief Legislative Counsel of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office. At the ACLU, he analyzed the civil liberties implications of terrorism, national security, immigration, and informational privacy legislation. Greg also served for four years the Director of Legal Services of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and conducted much of ADC's work on immigration, civil rights, and human rights. He was an attorney with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart (now K&L Gates) where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, securities law, and international trade.
Greg graduated from the University of Rochester in 1981 with a B.A. in Political Science. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1985 and sat on the Editorial Board of the Virginia Journal of International Law.
Isabella Hillebrand (she/her/hers) is the Operations Associate at CDT, where she oversees a wide range of administrative and executive support alongside the Operations team.
Prior to joining CDT, she served as the Communications & Fundraising Coordinator for Wash!, a nonprofit dedicated to honoring the significance of women's work and building connected, collaborative communities.
Isabella earned her Bachelor's degree in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies and her Master's degree in Public Administration at Clark University. In her free time, she enjoys reading thrillers, watching scary movies, and spending time with loved ones.
Job Titles:
- Director of CDT 's Europe Office
- Director, Europe Office
Iverna McGowan is Director of CDT's Europe Office, and an advocate for ensuring international human rights standards are at the core of law and policy related to technology. At CDT, Iverna leads the Brussels-based Europe team that works to put human rights and democracy at the center of the European Union and its member countries' tech policy agendas.
Prior to joining CDT, Iverna served as a Senior Advisor to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She led the work on protecting online civic space and human rights and technology more broadly for the European Regional Office. She was also the focal point on the rule of law and offered recommendations for the EU's new rule of law mechanism.
Iverna previously served for seven years as the Executive Director and Advocacy Director for Europe at Amnesty International's European Institutions Office. Under her leadership, the office led and won a number of significant campaigns on human rights. On account of this human rights advocacy she was listed by Politico in 2017 as one of the most influential women on EU policy and law making. At the European Parliament in 2016, she accepted, on behalf of her team, the Sinti and Roma European Civil Rights Prize for the office's groundbreaking work in strategic litigation under the EU's Race Equality Directive. She also served as the organisation's international spokesperson on EU affairs.
Iverna has also worked at the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and, before embarking on a career in the public sector, headed up a team at the French IT, web infrastructure, and services company Groupe Open.
Iverna serves on the EU Board of the National Resource Governance Institute and is a previous board member of Transparency International's EU Office. She was also elected by civil society peers in 2017 to the advisory panel of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. Iverna also founded her own consultancy which supports civil society leaders, and conducts human rights research and policy analysis.
She holds a B.A. in European Studies from Trinity College Dublin and an LL.M from Maastricht University's School of European Law, where she was awarded a scholarship for having graduated as a top three percent scholar. She is a frequent commentator on human rights, EU foreign policy, and gender equality, and has contributed to pieces by Euronews, CNN, BBC, RTE, and Reuters.
Job Titles:
- System Administrator and Web Technician
Jacob Kauffman is the System Administrator and Web Technician at CDT, where he ensures the proper functioning and security of CDT's assets and website.
Prior to joining CDT, he was Senior IT and Video Production Manager at SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
Jacob's hobbies include building things (be it via a hammer and nails, or a new programming language he's learning), playing the guitar, and photography. He studied Writing & Directing Film at the Colorado Film School.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director of CDT 's Security
- Deputy Director, Security and Surveillance Project
Jake Laperruque is Deputy Director of CDT's Security and Surveillance Project. Prior to joining CDT, Jake worked as Senior Counsel at the Constitution Project at the Project On Government Oversight.
He also previously served as a Program Fellow at the Open Technology Institute, and a Law Clerk on the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Jake is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Washington University in St. Louis.
Job Titles:
- Partnerships Manager for the Center of Democracy
Jamal is the Partnerships Manager for the Center of Democracy (CDT), where he is responsible for strategic outreach to and engagement with new and existing external stakeholders and partners.
Prior to joining CDT in the summer of 2019, Jamal worked as a Partnership Associate for a local nonprofit, where he helped to provide healthy food options to communities in need.
Jamal is a graduate of Norfolk State University where he studied Communications and Marketing. He currently lives in Washington, DC where he is an avid jogger.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel / Microsoft
Job Titles:
- Director of CDT 's Free Expression Project
- Director, Free Expression Project
Kate Ruane is the Director of CDT's Free Expression Project. An attorney with a strong background in legal research, Kate is committed to the freedom of speech and to bringing focus to the ways in which strong protections for free expression benefit communities of color, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, and other oft-censored groups. Kate's expertise is expansive and her work spans many issues including the intersection of civil rights and free speech protections, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, online privacy and surveillance, harassment, protecting children online, and disinformation.
Most recently, Kate served as the Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs at PEN America, where she augmented PEN America's free expression work in the states. She led advocacy to combat the spread of legislation seeking to restrict drag performance, collaborated on legislative efforts to end book bans in schools, and assisted in drafting amicus briefs arguing against the constitutionality of educational gag orders that prevent the discussion of race-related and other critical topics in classrooms. She also built a team focused on creating meaningful interventions to reduce the impact of disinformation in advance of the 2024 U.S. elections. Prior to joining PEN America, Kate led US policy at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that hosts Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects, she served as Senior Advisor for the First Amendment and Consumer Privacy at the American Civil Liberties Union for 3 years, and she spent eleven years as a Legislative Attorney for the Congressional Research Service.
Kate received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her law degree from American University, Washington College of Law.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
Job Titles:
- Policy Counsel, Equity in Civic Technology
Kristin Woelfel serves as Policy Counsel on CDT's Equity in Civic Technology team, where she focuses on the ethical, responsible, and equitable use of data and technology in public education and other civil institutions.
Prior to joining CDT, Kristin served as Member Advocate at the largest teachers union in the Southeast United States, servicing the educators of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Here she worked alongside educators of the third-largest school district in the nation in negotiating, interpreting, and enforcing their collective bargaining agreement, and engaging in local and statewide advocacy for ballot measures and policies seeking to preserve free and fair public education. Kristin also served as a fellow for the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, where her work contributed to the organization's mission of combatting online abuse and protecting civil liberties online.
Kristin holds a J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law, where she co-founded the Technology Law Club, a coaliton focused on the intersection of technology, law, and policy. During this time, Kristin also externed with the University's Office of Privacy and Data Security, where she served the team tasked with the University Health System and the University at large in privacy policies and breach response.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- President / Laura Murphy & Associates
Job Titles:
- Policy Analyst
- Policy Analyst, Equity in Civic Technology
Maddy Dwyer serves as a Policy Analyst on CDT's Equity in Civic Technology team, where she focuses on the responsible, equitable use of data and technology by public agencies and civic institutions to improve outcomes for individuals and the public good, while ensuring it does not come at the expense of privacy and civil rights.
Prior to joining CDT, Maddy served as a Communications Associate with The Pew Charitable Trusts working with their Broadband Access Initiative and Civil Legal System Modernization Project. There she supported each policy team's strategic communications efforts, including building communications campaigns for their state and federal advocacy work, assisting with research publications, and crafting advocacy messages to policymakers and other relevant stakeholders to advance the projects' goals. Before joining Pew, Maddy served as a Communications Intern for CDT and has completed many communications and public affairs internships in industries such as cosmetics and personal care, healthcare, and water utilities.
Maddy holds a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Stanford University, with a concentration in Race in American History and Politics. She also holds a Master of Arts in Media and Strategic Communication from The School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
Mallory Knodel is CDT's Chief Technology Officer. She is a member of the Internet Architecture Board and the co-chair of the Human Rights Protocol Considerations research group of the Internet Research Task Force. Mallory is also on the advisory committee for the Open Technology Fund. Mallory takes a human rights, people-centered approach to technology implementation, with a focus on encryption, censorship, and cybersecurity.
Having lived and worked extensively abroad, she brings inclusive and grassroots coalition-building experience to CDT's program areas, including "public interest technology" field building efforts inside and outside CDT. Mallory is a prolific and published author of works that demystify and break myths about how technology works. She holds a BS in Physics and Mathematics and an MA in Science Education.
Job Titles:
- Certified Public Accountant
- Director of Finance & Staff Operations
Maria Isabel Villamar serves as CDT's Director of Finance & Staff Operations, where she not only works to ensure that its finances are in perfect order but also leads staff operations to recruit and retain top talent who are dedicated to advancing CDT's mission.
As part of her leadership for CDT's finances, she empowers CDT's project teams to excel through transparent, responsive, and inclusive financial processes as well as leads CDT's budgeting process and annual financial audit and tax return. In support staff operations, she collaborates with hiring managers and the CEO to develop and oversee processes for hiring new staff, direct CDT's employee benefits program, with focus on providing competitive benefits at a reasonable cost, and proactively resolve a range of employee matters.
Prior to joining CDT, Maria Isabel led finance and operations work at multiple nonprofit organizations and in the private sector in the New York and Washington D.C. markets.
Maria Isabel is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a Bachelor of Science from Queens College.
When she isn't making CDT a great place to work, she enjoys to travel, taking long walks, and she lives in the DC Metro area with her daughter.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Partner & Co - Leader, Privacy & Data Security / Brunswick Group
Job Titles:
- Senior Policy Counsel for Workers' Rights and Technology
- Writer
Matt Scherer joined CDT in 2021 as Senior Policy Counsel for Workers' Rights and Technology. He studies how emerging technologies affect workers in the workplace and labor market. He works with the Privacy & Data Project to advocate for both governments and private organizations to adopt policies that protect workers' digital rights and ensure that new technologies enhance social justice and equality.
Matt came to CDT from Littler Mendelson, a global labor and employment law firm, where he advised employers and tech companies on algorithmic bias, HR tools' compliance with antidiscrimination laws, and related privacy and ethical issues. He also worked as an analytics project manager, conducting and overseeing complex data science projects. Before joining Littler, Matt practiced traditional employment law at Buchanan Angeli Altschul and Sullivan. Before entering private practice, he completed judicial clerkships with Judge Gregory M. Sleet at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Judge Deborah Cook at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Justice Charles Wiggins at the Washington Supreme Court. He also served for two years as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Pontiac, Michigan.
Matt is also a noted writer and commentator on the legal and policy issues surrounding artificial intelligence. His articles include Regulating Artificial Intelligence Systems and Applying Old Rules to New Tools: Employment Discrimination Law in the Age of Algorithms.
Matt received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as editor-in-chief of The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, and holds an M.S. in Educational Policy from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CDT Europe Board
Michal Luria is a Research Fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology.
Michal has recently obtained her Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. Her work makes use of unique immersive and human-centered design research methods to envision and critique interactions with emerging technologies that function in complex social contexts. In her work she translates research insights into thought-provoking interactions and necessary discussions of ethics and policy. She has a M.Sc in HCI from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.A in Interactive Communication from Reichman University in Israel. She previously worked on design research teams at iRobot and Facebook, and her research appeared in leading academic journals, and was featured on NBC, Dezeen, BBC News, The Verge, and Engadget, among others.
Job Titles:
- Director, CDT AI Governance Lab
- Founding Director of CDT 's AI Governance Lab
Miranda Bogen is the founding Director of CDT's AI Governance Lab, where she works to develop and promote adoption of robust, technically-informed solutions for the effective regulation and governance of AI systems.
An AI policy expert and responsible AI practitioner, Miranda has led advocacy and applied work around AI accountability across both industry and civil society. She most recently guided strategy and implementation of responsible AI practices at Meta, including driving large-scale efforts to measure and mitigate bias in AI-powered products and building out company-wide governance practices. Miranda previously worked as senior policy analyst at Upturn, where she conducted foundational research at the intersection of machine learning and civil rights, and served as co-chair of the Fairness, Transparency, and Accountability Working Group at the Partnership on AI.
Miranda has co-authored widely cited research, including empirically demonstrating the potential for discrimination in personalized advertising systems and illuminating the role artificial intelligence plays in the hiring process, and has helped to develop technical contributions including AI benchmarks to measure bias and robustness, privacy-preserving methods to measure racial disparities in AI systems, and reinforcement-learning driven interventions to advance equitable outcomes in products that mediate access to economic opportunity. Miranda's writing, analysis, and work has been featured in media including the Harvard Business Review, NPR, The Atlantic, Wired, Last Week Tonight, and more.
Miranda holds a master's degree from The Fletcher School at Tufts University with a focus on international technology policy, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with degrees in Political Science and Middle Eastern & North African Studies.
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- Member of the CDT Europe Board
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- Co - Director of the Privacy & Data Project
- Co - Director, Privacy & Data Project
Nathalie Marechal is Co-Director of the Privacy & Data Project at CDT, managing projects related to privacy and data protection in the context of artificial intelligence policy, online advertising, disability rights, workers' rights, and virtual, augmented and extended reality. She also sits on the Board of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research.
Prior to joining CDT in January 2023, she was the Policy Director at Ranking Digital Rights, where she led RDR's engagement with governments, international and multilateral organizations, civil society groups, and academia, with the aim of holding companies accountable for their duty to respect human rights. She also managed the researchers and advocates who produce RDR's signature scorecards, work with global partners to adapt RDR's methodology to new issue areas and local contexts, and engage directly with companies and investors.
In 2020, Nathalie was the lead author for RDR's "It's the Business Model" report series, which builds on her 2018 Motherboard op-ed, "Targeted Advertising is Ruining the Internet and Breaking the World," to argue that disinformation, hate speech, and other "information harms" associated social media platforms are rooted in the surveillance capitalism business model. The report series calls on governments to focus reform efforts on data protection and corporate governance, rather than attempting to regulate online speech. Previously, Nathalie led RDR's methodology development process to expand the Corporate Accountability Index to include new company types and issue areas, notably targeted advertising and algorithmic systems such as the ones used for content moderation. Nathalie's work on targeted advertising and its discontents has been credited with helping shift the national policy conversation away from a singular focus on content moderation and toward a more holistic approach to Big Tech accountability.
Nathalie earned a BA and MA from American University, and a PhD in Communication from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Her dissertation, "‘Use Signal, Use Tor' ? : The Political Economy of Digital Rights Technology," examined the relationship between the transnational social movement for human rights online and the US Internet Freedom Agenda through an ethnography of the "freedom technologists" behind popular secure messaging applications (Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram) and censorship circumvention software (Tor, Psiphon). Her work has been published by the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Democracy, the Global Commission on Internet Governance, Media and Communication, Global Voices, Motherboard, and Slate.
Nick Doty is a Senior Technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology, where he works to support privacy and human rights on the Internet and the Web, particularly through the design of technical standards.
Nick received his PhD at the UC Berkeley School of Information, studying multistakeholder technical standard-setting processes and their impacts on Internet security and privacy. At Berkeley, he co-founded the Center for Technology, Society & Policy - a multidisciplinary research and design/build center focusing on the emergent social and policy issues arising from the development and adoption of technology - and taught courses on Web development and tech policy.
With the World Wide Web Consortium, Nick managed the Do Not Track standardization process and helped build a process of privacy reviews for new Web features. Previously, he worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and studied philosophy at Amherst College.
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- Director of Development & External Affairs
O'Donavan Johnson is the Director of Development & External Affairs at CDT, overseeing fundraising, partnership engagement, the annual Tech Prom, and donor communications for the organization. He has over 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and higher ed, with additional background in communications, policy, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Prior to joining CDT, O'Donavan directed the Mid-Atlantic region for Princeton University's Office of Advancement. He previously led a $70 million capital campaign at the largest Jesuit high school in the U.S. Before that, O'Donavan lobbied Illinois state lawmakers as Executive Director of a K-12 education policy organization, taught at the undergraduate level, and worked as a graphic designer.
O'Donavan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) and a Master of Arts in Philosophy from DePaul University (Chicago, IL). Born and raised in Chicago, he has called Washington, D.C. home since 2016; while he enjoys the milder weather here, O'Donavan still laughs when the capital city shuts down for anything less than a mere 10-inch dusting of snow.
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- Advocacy & Communications Assistant, CDT Europe
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- Member of the CDT Europe Board
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- Member of the CDT Europe Board
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- Policy Counsel With CDT 's Privacy & Data Project
- Policy Counsel, Privacy & Data Project
Ridhi Shetty is a policy counsel with CDT's Privacy & Data Project. Prior to joining CDT, Ridhi worked as a research assistant on multiple scholarly projects, including Professor Sherley Cruz's Coding for Cultural Competency: Expanding Access to Justice with Technology. Ridhi was a student attorney at the AUWCL Women and the Law Clinic and has interned with the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights and Responsive Law.
Before law school, Ridhi worked at Aljira, a nonprofit in Newark, New Jersey, that used art to bridge divides and foster community. Ridhi earned her B.A. at Rutgers University-Newark and her J.D. at American University Washington College of Law.
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- Deputy Director of Communications, Design & Digital
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- Member of the CDT Europe Board
- Partner / Cooley LLP