2021 Assembly Project Fellowship
Cohort Members
The 2021 Assembly Fellowship invites back five ongoing Assembly alumni project teams -- developed during the previous four years of the program -- to further build their public interest, independent projects. To allow each fellow to fully engage in the program, each fellow participates as an individual, not as a representative of their organization.
ANIA CALDERON
Ania is a leading open government advocate with a track record supporting the delivery of open and
accountable data governance policies around the world. She was recently named one of the top 20 of
Apolitical’s World’s 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government 2019. Currently Executive Director of the Open Data Charter, she delivered a key presidential mandate for open data in Mexico as General Director for the National Digital Strategy from 2012-2016 and holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Columbia University. She is chair of the Board of Directors for Global Integrity and sits on multiple advisory boards.
Ania is a member of the AI Blindspot project team and originally participated in Assembly in 2019.
KASIA CHMIELINSKI
Kasia Chmielinski is the Co-Founder of The Data Nutrition Project, an initiative that builds tools to improve the health of artificial intelligence through better data. They are also a technologist at McKinsey & Company in Healthcare Systems & Services and previously worked at The U.S. Digital Service (Executive Office of the President) and Scratch, a project of the MIT Media Lab. They studied physics at Harvard University. When not in front of a whiteboard or a keyboard, Kasia can be found birdwatching or cycling uncomfortably-long distances on a bicycle.
Kasia is a member of the Data Nutrition Project team and originally participated in Assembly in 2018.
JENNY FAN
Jenny is a product designer and creative technologist interested in interdisciplinary approaches for studying and reimagining the relationship between technology and society, particularly regarding social infrastructure and information ecosystems. Her work focuses on designing for complex sociotechnical systems ranging from data integration platforms to cyberspeech regulations and platform governance. She has worked on technology strategy and UI/UX design for Palantir, IDEO, Accenture, and a number of Series A start-ups in NYC.
She holds a Masters in Design Engineering program from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a B.S. in Economics (Information Management) from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Jenny is a member of the Disinfodex team and originally participated in Assembly in 2020.
NATHAN FREITAS
Nathan is the founder and director of Guardian Project, an award-winning, open-source, mobile security collaborative with millions of users and beneficiaries worldwide. In late 2017, he co-designed with Edward Snowden, an app called Haven, which works as a personal security system that puts the power of surveillance back into the hands of the most vulnerable and under threat.
His work on off-grid, decentralized, secure mobile communication networks, dubbed Wind, was originally imagined and workshopped while a fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center in 2015. In 2018, Wind was selected as a finalist in the Mozilla-National Science Foundation "Wireless Innovation for a Networked Society (WINS)" Challenges.
Nathan is a member of the Clean Insights team and first participated in Assembly in 2017.
GRETCHEN GREENE
Gretchen Greene, C.Phil., M.S., J.D., is an international AI policy advisor, lawyer, computer vision scientist, and former U.S. national lab mathematician, developing AI and human rights policy guidance and industry best practices. Greene has worked for the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, the U.K. House of Lords, MIT, Harvard, and Partnership on AI.
Greene is a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center, a senior advisor at The Hastings Center, counsel at Baker Thomas law, and founder and CEO at Greene Strategy. Greene's recent work includes The Ethics of AI and Emotional Intelligence, inspired and informed by conversations with 200 experts in affective computing, ethics, and privacy, from industry, academia, news media, and advocacy organizations and Government Briefing Book: Emerging Technologies and Human Rights, distributed to government leaders and NGOs on six continents.
Greene is a member of the Cloak & Pixel team and first participated in Assembly in 2018.
GÜLSIN HARMAN
Gülsin Harman is a journalist based in Istanbul. She currently leads a reporting project about COVID-19 misinformation on messaging platforms and closed groups widely used by senior citizens in Turkey, with the support of European Journalism Center. As a Nieman Fellow 2020 at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, she studied how new challenges to journalism impact democracy, with a focus on the link between disinformation and distrust of media in society. She regularly works for The New York Times Istanbul Bureau, where she has contributed to coverage of Turkey since 2017.
Gülsin is a member of the Disinfodex team and first participated in Assembly in 2020.
JOSH JOSEPH
Josh Joseph is the Chief Intelligence Architect of the Bridge, the application side of MIT's Quest for Intelligence, where he works to build the practices and tools to enable scientists and researchers to use AI effectively and responsibly. Previously, Josh was the Chief Science Officer of an alternative data distribution platform and co-founded a proprietary trading company based on machine learning driven strategy discovery and fully autonomous trading. Additionally, he has done a variety of consulting work across finance, life sciences, and robotics. He received a Ph.D. and S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in both Applied Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Josh is a member of the Data Nutrition Project team and first participated in Assembly in 2018.
THOM MIANO
Thom Miano is a research data scientist in RTI International’s Center for Data Science. Mr. Miano collaborates with subject-matter experts and uses machine learning, software development, and data visualization to develop data science solutions to complex problems in a variety of domains including health care, public health, social science, policy, and finance.
Thom is a member of the Cloak & Pixel team and first participated in Assembly in 2018.
SARAH NEWMAN
Sarah Newman is Director of Art & Education at metaLAB at Harvard, a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, and the Program Design Co-Lead for the Harvard Assembly Fellowship. Working at the intersection of research and art, her current work explores the social and philosophical dimensions of new technologies and uses interactive art as a means of critique and public engagement. She is also a facilitator and educator and leads customized workshops that use creative materials to address interdisciplinary research problems.
Newman is a 2017 AI Grant Fellow, a member of the 2018 Assembly Cohort, a co-founder of the Data Nutrition Project, a 2019 Rockefeller AI Resident Fellow, and the 2020 artist-in-residence at Northeastern University’s Center for Law, Innovation, and Creativity. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Newman is a member of the Data Nutrition Project and first participated in Assembly in 2018.
DANIEL PEDRAZA
Daniel Pedraza is an engineer, entrepreneur, and technologist from Mexico. His academic background is in aerospace engineering with a focus on computational methods for aerodynamics. He is currently supporting customer development efforts and contributing to product strategy at Berbix – a YC startup building identity verification and fraud deterrence as a service. Prior to this, Daniel began his career as a Formula One aerodynamicist. Daniel has also spent time looking at the open challenges to harnessing technology for public good, serving the United Nations. As a child he dreamt of becoming an astronaut but never made it into space.
Daniel is a member of the Cloak & Pixel team and first participated in Assembly in 2018.
HONG QU
Hong Qu is an adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School. Hong was one of the first engineers on YouTube’s startup team building key features such as video sharing, channels and skippable ads. He is currently a non-resident fellow at Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity investigating the impact of AI on fair lending laws and practices. He graduated from Wesleyan University and UC Berkeley's School of Information, and is currently a PhD candidate at the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University.
Hong is a member of the AI Blindspot team and first participated in Assembly in 2019.
DAN TABER
Dan has used data to address social issues for more than 15 years as a data scientist, professor, founder, and AI ethics practitioner. His academic research informed federal policy change to improve children's nutrition, and as a Vice President of Research, he fostered collaborations between academic, city, and business leaders to address public health issues. In 2019, he launched and led a company-wide ethics initiative after studying ethics and governance of AI as an Assembly Fellow. He is the founder of Science By Design, whose mission is to combine science, creativity, and design thinking to help organizations advocate for evidence-based change. Dan considers Seattle home but has lived and traveled all over the world. An adventure traveler at heart, he has backpacked through dozens of countries and has a knack for stumbling into bizarre travel stories.
Dan is a member of the AI Blindspot team and first participated in Assembly in 2019.
RHONA TARRANT
Rhona Tarrant is US Editor at Storyful, a social media news intelligence agency that verifies footage emerging from breaking news stories for newsrooms. Storyful specializes in covering misinformation and disinformation, online extremism and media manipulation. Before joining Storyful in 2017, Rhona worked as a reporter with Ireland’s RTE Radio 1 and WNYC in New York. She holds a bachelor's degree in New Media and English from the University of Limerick and a masters degree in Journalism and Media Communications from Griffith College Dublin.
Rhona is a member of the Disinfodex team and first participated in Assembly in 2020.
MATTHEW TAYLOR
Matthew is a freelance learning experience designer and facilitator with a background in AI implementation. Previously, he worked as an engineer in natural language processing, moderation tool development, and creative coding platform development. He is currently creating learning experiences in STEAM for young people, and demystifying AI for all people. Seasoned pun specialist.
Matthew is a member of the Data Nutrition Project team and first participated in Assembly in 2018.
KEMI THOMAS
Kemi is a full-stack engineer passionate about building REST API applications and making people’s lives easier. Primary focus in the NERD stack (Node.js, Express, React, Databases using SQL), but open to other technologies.
Kemi is a member of the Data Nutrition Project team.
ASHLEY TOLBERT
An ex-NASA engineer, Ashley enjoys bridging her passions of science, security and social impact. She is currently a Senior Security Engineer at Netflix focusing on Crisis Management and Incident Response; she has also worked for the Department of Energy and Stanford University Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Her diverse background includes researching compromises of electrical SMART grids at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and modeling software at NASA Ames as an Alabama Space Grant recipient. Ashley holds a M.S. in Information Security from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Software Engineering from Auburn University. She is a contributing writer for New America and sits on the Board of Women in Security and Privacy (WISP). When she’s not defending cyberspace, she’s running outside, discovering new music like Afrobeats, or traveling to be inspired.
Ashley is a member of the Disinfodex team and first participated in Assembly in 2020.
NEAL UNGERLEIDER
A writer and content consultant, Neal is the founder and President of Nungerleider; in this capacity, he works with brands, organizations and investors to explain new technologies and products to both the general public and opinion leaders. In his previous role as a reporter for Fast Company, Neal spent six years covering cybersecurity, social media and society, autonomous vehicles, private space travel, and more. Neal has a BA in Journalism from Temple University and a MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev where his thesis was written on state-funded English language news networks' coverage of post-2009 Iranian election unrest. In his free time, Neal enjoys cooking, reading and drinking large quantities of coffee. He resides in Chicago with his wife and son, but remains a proud native of New York's outer boroughs. A participant in the 2020 Assembly: Disinformation fellowship, Neal is continuing his prior work with the Disinfodex team.
Neal is a member of the Disinfodex team and first participated in Assembly in 2020.
JEFF WEN
Jeff is a PhD student at Stanford applying computational methods to understand the impacts of climate change and improve decision making under uncertainty. He was previously a data science team lead at Pixability and a data scientist at Tesla. Jeff holds a Bachelors in Economics from Wharton and a Masters in Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jeff is a member of AI Blindspot and first participated in the program in 2019.
CLEMENT WOLF
Clement leads Google’s global public policy work on mis- and disinformation. In that capacity, he advises Google and Youtube's teams on relevant products, policies, and initiatives, and engages with subject matter experts in academia and civil society around the world. Previously, Clement was a public policy advisor to the Google Search and News teams. Clement earned a bachelor’s degree in Law from Universite Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne; a master’s degree in international affairs (with emphasis on security) from Sciences Po Paris; and a master’s degree in management from ESSEC Business School.
Clement is a member of the Disinfodex team and first participated in Assembly in 2020.
JESS YURKOFSKY
Designer, technologist, and librarian focused on visual communication and experimental pedagogy. Instructional designer, with a background in Sociology and Urban Planning. Lives in the woods in Vermont. Dedicated builder of cardboard models and drawer of cartoons.
Jess is a member of the Data Nutrition Project team.