Projects - Academia

Defending Democracy in a Digital World

Massachusetts

Zuckerman and students explore digital media, polarization, and democracy

The Workers' Algorithm Observatory (WAO)

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Worker-led audits in the platform economy

labor

Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill

Canada 🇨🇦

The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy examines how media and emerging technologies shape democracy.

Applied Social Media Lab (ASML)

Berkman Center For Internet, Everett Street, Cambridge, MA

The Applied Social Media Lab at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center brings together technologists and practitioners to reimagine, rebuild, and reboot social media to serve the public good and establish a long-lasting community of practice.

School for Poetic Computation (SFPC)

New York City (NYC / New York, NY)

School for Poetic Computation (SFPC) is an experimental school in New York and online founded in 2013. SFPC facilitates the study of art, code, hardware, and critical theory through lenses of decolonization and transformative justice.

Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI)

Chennai

Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI) is a virtual interdisciplinary research centre at IIT Madras.

Escola Nacional de Administração Pública (ENAP)

Brasília

Conhecimento e prática para a transformação do Estado

Instituto de Governo Aberto

São Paulo

Transparência, participação e inovação para uma sociedade mais justa, inclusiva e igualitária

Digital Society Initiative Democracy Community

Zürich

The DSI Community Democracy at the University of Zurich focuses on research related to the impact of digitalisation on the political system, on democracy, and on related topics.

Pilot Pitchfest

New York City (NYC / New York, NY)

We match New York City agencies to local researchers and technical assistance from civic society

city

mInt: Human-centered design principles for effective management of social boundaries in interoperable text messaging platforms

Copenhagen

At the Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University

alphaXiv

Stanford University, Serra Mall, Stanford, CA

Students at Stanford have built alphaXiv, an open discussion forum for arXiv papers

University of Miami's Office of Civic and Community Engagement

Miami, FL

The McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University

New York University

Research, programs and interventions that address the root causes and consequences of poverty. Learn moreabout What We Do

No poverty

Improving Delivery of the Social Safety Net: The Role of Stigma

United States of America 🇺🇸

Article in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory by Jessica Lasky-Fink and Elizabeth Linos

Protests in the United States on Palestine and Israel, 2023–2024

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Analyzes the size, rhetorical nature, and non-violent nature of the pro-Palestine protest wave, which it finds to be "the largest, most sustained US protests sparked by a foreign event" since their data became available in 2017. Published in Social Movement Studies

Israel Palestine

Data as Material Course

The New School, East 13th Street, New York, NY

Taught By Richard The

Storytelling with Data Course

The New School, East 13th Street, New York, NY

Taught by Maria Massei-Rosato

Civic Service Design Graduate Minor at The New School

The New School, East 13th Street, New York, NY

The Civic Service Design minor draws upon a practice and subfield of research and theory that connect to design, social theory, and public policy and management frameworks, methods, and tools to reformulate participation and decision making in the creation of public policies, programs, and services, with the goal of fostering more just and equitable cities and societies.

How to Think/Act in Dark Times: Exploring a Critical Praxis

The New School, East 13th Street, New York, NY

Taught By: Eduardo Staszowski

Project 2025

Fritz Family Fellowship at Georgetown University Tech & Society

The George Washington University, I Street Northwest, Washington, DC

Building on expertise from across Tech & Society, the Fritz Family Fellowship aims to cultivate the next generation of leaders with expertise in the social impacts of technology, and build a network of public interest technologists who learn from and support each other’s work.

Public & Collab Services Course

The New School, East 13th Street, New York, NY

A core course for the Graduate Minor in Civic Service Design at Parsons School of Design at The New School, taught by Lara Penin

Center for Science and the Imagination

Arizona State University

Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination brings writers, artists and other creative thinkers into collaboration with scientists, engineers and technologists to reignite humanity’s grand ambitions for innovation and discovery.

Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology (SMIT)

Brussels

We are dedicated to shaping the future of technology through interdisciplinary research and collaboration.

Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College

New York state

HAC is the world's most expansive home for bold and risky humanities thinking about our political world inspired by the spirit of Hannah Arendt.

Democracy Innovation Hub

New York state

We convene and train public servants, community leaders and educators to use participatory methods of engagement and tools, with a focus on citizens’ assemblies.

Journal of Democracy

Baltimore, MD

Focusing exclusively on democracy, the Journal monitors and analyzes democratic regimes and movements around the world.

Governance of Emerging Technology and Tech Innovations for Next-Gen Governance (GETTING-Plurality)

Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA

A multi-disciplinary research network linking philosophers, social scientists, computer scientists, legal scholars, and technologists.

Prosocial Media

We propose an alternative platform model that the social fabric an explicit output as well as input. By E. Glen Weyl, Luke Thorburn, Emillie de Keulenaar, Jacob Mchangama, Divya Siddarth, Audrey Tang

Nonviolent Action Lab

Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA

The Nonviolent Action Lab is an innovation hub for activists, researchers, and supporters who share common goals around defending and advancing democracy worldwide through civil resistance — protests, demonstrations, and other actions.

Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation

Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA

The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation aims to reinforce democracy through strengthening institutions, building interpersonal and informational trust, and reducing hyper-partisan affective polarization with research and field-building.

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Harvard’s hub for research and teaching on democracy

Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University

Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA

Founded in 2021 with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University serves a global community committed to improving public management, leadership, and governance.

AI and Democracy Movements Project

Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA

The AI and Democracy Movements Project explores the impacts of AI on the strategy, operations, and outcomes of pro-democratic social movements.

Wiki Education

Chico, California

Wiki Education engages students and academics to improve Wikipedia

Duke University moral algorithms funded by OpenAI

OpenAI is funding research at Duke University to develop algorithms that can predict human moral judgments in scenarios involving conflicts among morally relevant features in medicine, law, and business

The Dialogue on Technology Project (DoT)

Burnaby, Canada

DoT’s mission is to convene a sustained and nuanced societal dialogue between leaders, experts and community members around the social impacts of AI in British Columbia and Canada.

Hey Neighbour Collective

Burnaby, Canada

Hey Neighbour Collective (HNC) is a collective impact project that brings together housing providers, researchers, local and regional governments, housing associations and health authorities to experiment with and learn about ways of effectively building community, social connectedness and resilience in B.C.’s fast-growing vertical communities.

Mitigating Wildfire

Burnaby, Canada

The Mitigating Wildfire Initiative facilitates dialogue and collaboration to identify and advance solutions that address the fundamental changes happening in wildfire risk and management in British Columbia.

fires

Democratic AI is Possible. The Democracy Levels Framework Shows How It Might Work

San Francisco

In this paper, building on insights from the theory and practice of deliberative democracy, we provide a "Democracy Levels" framework for evaluating the degree to which decisions in a given domain are made democratically.