Position: Associate Professor
Department: School of Public Policy, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Areas of Interest:
Internet policy including global governance of the Internet, intellectual property, privacy, and civil liberties; as well as socio-technical systems including development of large technical systems such as intelligent highways, electricity production and distribution, complex weapons systems, air traffic control, and digital communications.

Interesting projects:
File sharing on the Internet: "We are looking at the questions of whether intellectual property interests, such as the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), are going too far in defining and enforcing intellectual property rights. Recently, the RIAA unleashed a wave of lawsuits against students who share music files, basing their actions on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that they themselves helped write. Critics of their actions say that they are short-circuiting due legal process with their enhanced legal powers to force Internet service providers to reveal user identities. My research examines initiatives by groups like the RIAA to further extend intellectual property rights through state-level legislation."

United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS): "Does the UN have a role to play in shaping how information technology (IT) will be diffused in societies around the world? The UN summits in 2003 and 2005 on the information society will help articulate a global vision and action plan for realizing the benefits of IT. Whether such an ambitious plan will yield concrete benefits is a focus of this research project."