APPROACH
I’m interested in how technology operates in context and how it disrupts or reinforces power. I am most concerned with how technology is used to reinforce control and exclusion, displace human discernment and creativity, or constrain collective action. Instead, I want to build a world where technology is designed and governed to support self-determination, so that people can shape the conditions of their own lives and participate in forms of collective care that are not coercive or extractive.
My work spans three reinforcing modes: practice, critique, and imagination. Working within civic institutions, I work to operationalize these values to understand what actually works in practice under legal, political, and other emergent constraints. I write to illuminate what is obscured or normalized in these systems, with visual art as a parallel practice that explores these dynamics more obliquely. Teaching is a generative space to engage history, develop ideas, and imagine what else is possible.
WRITING
2025 Mayor-Elect Mamdani Can Build a Tech Agenda for New York and a Model for the Country, Tech Policy Press
2025 Who Age Verification Laws Really Benefit & How to Resist, User Mag
2025 Digital IDs Put Health Care Privacy at Risk, Convergence Magazine
2025 Demands for Protecting Human Dignity and Choice from Digital Identification Systems, Surveillance Resistance Lab
2025 How Congress Can Delete DOGE, Tech Policy Press
2024 Poem exercises, Strange Forms: Poetry & Technology, Brooklyn Poets
2022 Artificial Intelligence in the City: Building Civic Engagement and Public Trust, McGill University
2021 What Should You Consider When Investing In “Smart City” Technology?, Harvard Kennedy School
2021 Your Guide to Watching the Watchers, Harvard Kennedy School
2021 Everything Local Surveillance Laws Are Missing In One Post, Harvard Kennedy School
2021 Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition): 2020-21 “Smart City” Cautionary Trends & 10 Calls to Action to Protect and Promote Democracy, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKING
2026 Digital Deception: Deepfakes, AI Impersonation, and the Surveillance Arms Race, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law
2026 Digital Democracy from Below, Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, UVA
2025 Burner Phone 101, Brooklyn Public Library
2025 DOGE and Data Privacy, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law
2025 Disrupted Alliance, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
2025 How Digital ID Threatens Democracy, Safety, and Our Humanity, RightsCon
2022 Location Data in Context, National Academies
2022 AI in the City: Building Civic Engagement and Public Trust, McGill University
2022 An Overview of Surveillance Technology Markets, RightsCon
2021 New Screen Deal, Cornell Tech
2021 Technology and Public Purpose Series, Harvard Kennedy School
2021 Protecting & Promoting Democracy w/ Technology, Harvard Kennedy School
2021 Surveillance in the Urban Space, RightsCon
2019 An inside look at government data making (Reprise), NICAR
2018 An inside look at government data making, NICAR
2017 Beyond FOIA, SRCCON
2017 Digital Security Training, Georgetown Law
2016 Behind the curtain, NICAR
2015 Your Laws, Your Data: Making Government More Open, SXSW
ART
2026 (in progress) Unique Identifier, Prospect Heights Art Club, One Good Work Public Art Residency
2024 CAPTCHA: Completely Artistic Paintings to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, MidMountain Collective Group Show
2024 To the Streets! (participant project), School of Poetic Computation
TEACHING
2025–Present INFO 619: Information & Human Rights, Instructor, Pratt Institute
2022 PADM-GP 4506: Python for Public Policy, Lecturer, New York University
2021 Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age, Syllabus Contributor, Harvard Kennedy School
2018 GW LAW 6351: Open Government Data, Lecturer, George Washington Law School
2017 AS.470.901: Performance Analytics - Tools and Techniques, Instructor, Johns Hopkins University
2009 SUSTCOMM 205: Dynamics of Human Habitation, Teaching Assistant, UMass Amherst
INSTITUTIONAL ROLES
2025–Present Visiting Assistant Professor, Pratt Institute
2022–Present Senior Strategist, Privacy & Data Governance, ACLU
2020–2021 Technology & Public Purpose Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School
2017–2020 Digital Services Expert, OFCIO, White House OMB
2016–2017 Senior Advisor, GovEx, Johns Hopkins University
2015–2016 Policy Analyst, OFCIO, White House OMB
2014–2015 IT Specialist, Data.gov, General Services Administration
2013–2014 Policy Analyst, Sunlight Foundation
SERVICE & ORGANIZING
2024–Present Steward, ACLU Staff United, NPEU
2023–Present Board Member, MuckRock
2015–Present Founder & Organizer, Civic Tech Book Club
2023–Present Pro Bono Attorney, Palestine Legal
2013–2020 Founder & Organizer, DC Legal Hackers
EDUCATION & LICENSES
2022 Bar Admission, State of New York
2009 J.D., Environmental Law, Western New England University Law School
2004 B.A., Communication & Film, UMass Amherst
AWARDS & MEDIA APPEARANCES
2025 DOGE and the United States of AI, Tech Policy Press
2025 Shoplifters could soon be chased down by drones, MIT Technology Review
2025 How to Set Up and Use a Burner Phone, Wired
2025 What’s next for our privacy?, MIT Technology Review
2024 AI is beyond government control, StateScoop
2023 Researchers worry about data access in a Threads-ruled world, Fast Company
2023 Community Notes is the fiercest 2024 primary battleground, Daily Dot
2023 A US Agency Rejected Face Recognition—and Landed in Big Trouble, Wired
2023 Why federal LGBTQI+ data collection should concern officials, StateScoop
2021 Is New Orleans Trading Internet Access for Corporate Surveillance?, The New Republic
2018 How Legal Hackers Are Changing The Legal Industry, Forbes
2017 Hackers Aren't the Only Ones Defending Your Right to Federal Data, Wired
2014 10 Women to Watch in Legal Tech, American Bar Association
2013 Garcetti orders release of city data, but scope uncertain, Los Angeles Times