Introducing Our 29 Newest Mozilla Fellows

Mohammad Abdul Awal Haolader | Bangladesh

Awal is committed to improving the security and trustworthiness of the global internet routing infrastructure. He will embed at NSRC, and conduct hands-on technical workshops for network engineers in South Asia on routing infrastructure and security operations, focusing on best current practices and MANRS’ recommendations. Before joining Mozilla, Awal helped organizations like NRENs, universities, ISPs, data centers, and transit providers in Bangladesh to build and operate structured networks. He has been teaching at NOG events across the Asia-Pacific such as APRICOT, SANOG, and bdNOG to help improve internet operations in the region.

Chenai Chair | Zimbabwe

Chenai will examine policy developments that enhance digital rights — specifically around privacy and data protection — in the context of African governments using artificial intelligence. Along with being a Mozilla Fellow, Chenai serves as Research Manager focused on Gender and Digital Rights at the World Wide Web Foundation.

Emmi Clay Bevensee | U.S. | @emmibevensee

Emmi will embed with the Anti-Defamation League and develop technical and political tools to combat the next generation of fascism and disinformation online. Before joining Mozilla, they were a PhD student at the University of Arizona iSchool studying machine learning, while conducting activism in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Jens Ewald | Germany

Jens is an OpenDoTT fellow focusing on wearables and the self. Jens has a strong interest in programming languages, their cultural impact, and the relation of coded systems to art and design. Since 2006, Jens has been a member of the sound-art collective Staalplaat Soundsystem, building electronics and software for various sound installations using everyday objects. Since 2010, Jens is a lecturer for interactive prototyping at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design. Jens has hosted workshops on physical computing and creative programming as a visiting lecturer in Germany and India, as well as at media art festivals in Europe.

Felipe Fonseca | Brazil | @efeefe

Felipe is an OpenDoTT fellow, free/open advocate, and researcher focusing on smart cities. Felipe is co-founder and leader of a number of community and networking initiatives dedicated to critical thinking and making at the crossroads of culture, science, technology and society. Examples include MetaReciclagem, CulturaDigital.BR, Bricolabs, Lixo Eletrônico, Ciência Aberta Ubatuba, UbaLab. Felipe has an MA in Science Diffusion from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil, acquired with a dissertation about networked experimental labs.

Aurum Linh | Germany

Aurum is a technologist and product developer working at the intersection of human rights and the digital ecosystem. Aurum will embed at Digital Freedom Fund and research the use of machine learning algorithms by oppressive power structures, in order to identify where human rights are being violated. They will use this research to create prototypes and will explore how litigation can be drafted to shape the space in which existing technologies are growing. Aurum will also collaborate with Digital Freedom Fund to create two guides: The first will be aimed at digital rights activists, technologists, and data scientists to demystify litigation. The second will be aimed at lawyers with clients whose rights have been violated by the development and use of AI. In the past, Aurum has worked at the Internet Archive, IDEO CoLab, and Adobe.

Piers Gooding | Australia | @P_Gooding

Piers will examine web-based mental health initiatives and their implications for fundamental rights and freedoms. He will focus on machine learning technologies such as “digital phenotyping” and “AI-based suicide alerts,” with the goal of ensuring safeguards in laws of data protection, privacy, non-discrimination, human rights, and public administration. Piers joins Mozilla from the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and the University of Melbourne Law School, where he conducts research and teaching in disability law and policy.

Karolina Iwańska | Poland | @ka_iwanska

Karolina will create a set of criteria for advertising which respects human rights and data protection principles in order to address threats posed by the dominant surveillance-based advertising model. She will investigate and expose the negative effects of targeted advertising, and map existing alternatives. She seeks to change the dominant narrative that an internet without pervasive tracking is impossible. Along with being a Mozilla Fellow, Karolina works as a lawyer and researcher at Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish NGO fighting for freedom and privacy in the digital age.

Fieke Jansen | Germany | @fiekej

Fieke is a researcher and practitioner on issues related to technology, autonomy, power, and human rights. Fieke will examine responsible AI practices for public institutions and citizens’ resistance to AI. She is a PhD candidate at the Data Justice Lab, where she researches the impact of data-driven policing practices on European societies. Prior to becoming a fellow, Fieke has been active in the digital rights space as a digital security trainer and data politics researcher.

Divij Joshi | India

Divij will study and interrogate machine decision-making systems being employed in India, and design tools and policies to ensure that these systems are compatible with legal and constitutional rights. In particular, he will focus on strengthening democratic mechanisms for building accountability for machine decision-making systems. Before joining Mozilla, Divij was a researcher at Vidhi Karnataka, conducting independent research and advising state and local governments on technology policy, regulatory design, and urban governance. He is admitted to practice law in India and helps manage the SpicyIP blog.

Frederike Kaltheuner | UK | @f_kaltheuner

Frederike will examine applications of AI systems that classify, judge, and evaluate people’s identities, feelings, and emotions, in order to uncover where and how such technology is currently deployed. She will also develop domain-specific recommendations for standards and regulations (beyond data protection). Before joining Mozilla, Frederike was a director at Privacy International in London, where she led the organisation’s strategic work on corporate surveillance and emerging technology. Frederike has given expert evidence in the European Parliament, the Belgium Parliament, and the UK House of Lords. She holds an MSc in Internet Science the University of Oxford and a BA in Philosophy and Politics from Maastricht University.

Cayla Key | U.S.

Cayla is a design researcher and OpenDoTT fellow interested in the interplay between humans and smart home technologies. Believing they shape our interactions with ethical implications, she will critically understand the edges and traces of these relationships across their lifecycle from ideation to creation, consumption to disposal, repair and reappropriation. Her work for the last several years has focused on breaking open the normative assumptions attached to the very term “home,” and in turn the homogeneity of current domestic IoT approaches and values. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Interaction Design from the University of Washington and has published works in international journals.

Caleb Kibet | Kenya | @calkibet

Caleb will address the need to adopt open science practices and policies in data storage, reuse, reproducible pipelines, and collaborative research in Kenya. Caleb will promote FAIR genomic data storage policies and frameworks, enhance collaboration between computer and biomedical scientists, and increase the uptake of machine learning for genomic analysis. Ultimately, Caleb aims to grow OpenScienceKE, a community of scientists, researchers and students seeking to promote open science practices in Kenya. Before joining Mozilla, Caleb was a Bioinformatician at icipe, where he led the Bioinformatics team engaged in genomic data analysis. He has built Bioinformatics capacity as part of H3ABioNet and EANBiT networks.

Sarah Kiden | Uganda | @mskiden

Sarah is an OpenDoTT fellow, a technologist, and a researcher working on technology solutions for communities and teaching networking for development. She was a 2017-2018 Ford-Mozilla fellow hosted by Research ICT Africa and working on broadband performance and internet measurements. Sarah is on the core engineering team at Research and Education Network for Uganda, coordinating capacity building for universities and research institutions. She has worked in various technical capacities in academia in Uganda. She volunteers with Internet Society and ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Committee, representing the interests of Internet end-users. She holds an MSc in Information Systems.

Harriet Kingaby | UK | @HKingaby

Harriet Kingaby will study the unintended consequences of AI-enhanced advertising. She will embed with Consumers International to identify issues with targeting, personalisation, and other uses of the technologies, and build tools to mitigate their effects. Before joining Mozilla, Harriet worked as a brand purpose strategist at various communications agencies in London, including Media Bounty and BoraCo, where she helped brands big and small to make positive change. Harriet is co-chair of the Conscious Advertising Network.

Francesco Lapenta | Denmark | @beingdigitalorg

Francesco is a scholar whose work focuses on emerging technologies, innovation, technologies' governance and standardization processes, impact assessment, and future scenario analysis. He will embed with Data Ethics and focus on how to develop better and more accountable AI and algorithmic/machine decision making systems and applications. He will develop a guide that will identify best industry practices and design standards, legislation, and other criteria for transparent and accountable use of AI/MDM. Francesco is the Director of the Institute of Future and Innovation Studies at John Cabot University, a Professor of Business and Information Technologies, and the technical editor of the IEEE P7006 Standard for Personal Data Artificial Intelligence Agents.

Narrira Lemos de Souza | Brazil | @narriral

Narrira will research, collect, and systematize information on the tools, strategies and infrastructures used to execute and propagate fake news in Latin America. She will examine misinformation’s impact on public opinion and social practices, and the role automated decision making plays. Narrira will embed at the host organization Derechos Digitales. Before joining Mozilla, Narrira worked as a digital security trainer, project manager, and UX researcher pursuing efforts to strengthen safe and sustainable practices for privacy and security aligned with social justice.

Daniel Leufer | Belgium | @djleufer

Daniel is a philosopher and policy analyst who works at the intersection of technology and politics. His current research focuses on how the development and deployment of artificial intelligence is impacting human rights and political decision making. Daniel will embed with Access Now to combat the myths and inaccuracies which obscure our understanding of AI. He will work with civil society organisations (CSOs) to identify the most harmful and pervasive AI myths and inaccuracies, and develop resources to help CSOs tackle these myths effectively and in a coordinated manner. He has a PhD in Philosophy from KU Leuven in Belgium and has worked on political philosophy (especially political dissidence), philosophy of technology, and the philosophy and sociology of war.

Jabhera Matogoro | Tanzania | @jaberamatogoro

Jabhera will be connecting the unconnected population in Tanzania, using wireless communications technologies based on both unlicensed spectrum bands and television white space in Ultra high frequency (UHF) spectrum band. He will embed with ISOC. Jabhera intends to scale community network initiatives in Kondoa to other areas in Tanzania and beyond. His project will leverage his previous experience building Kondoa Community Network (KCN) in the Dodoma Region. Before joining Mozilla, he worked as an assistant lecturer at the University of Dodoma, teaching, researching, and consulting.

Jonathan McCully | UK | @jonny_mccully

Jonathan will devise two resources — one for lawyers and another for technologists, data scientists, and digital rights activists — that provide tools for working together effectively when taking strategic litigation against AI-driven human rights violations. Jonathan is the Legal Adviser to the Digital Freedom Fund, an organisation that supports strategic litigation to advance digital rights in Europe. Prior to this, he held a senior legal role at an international non-governmental organisation, working on strategic litigation before international, regional, and domestic courts.

Irene Misoi | Kenya

Irene will embed at ISOC and build community networks that connect the unconnected in rural Kenya, by providing affordable internet and affordable and sustainable infrastructure. Before joining Mozilla, Irene was a Lecturer at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, teaching Networking and Communication and System Security and Audit. Irene is also a board member and mentor at AFCHIX, a pan-African organization that supports capacity for women in computing, and also builds community networks in partnership with USAID.

Petra Molnar | Canada | @_pmolnar

Petra is a lawyer and anthropologist working on new technologies that manage migration. She is the co-author of “Bots at the Gate”, a report on the human rights implications of automated decision-making in immigration systems with the International Human Rights Program, University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the Citizen Lab. She will embed with European Digital Rights and investigate the far-reaching impacts AI, biometrics, and surveillance technologies on human lives and human rights. In her previous life, she was a classical flautist.

Leil Zahra Mortada | Germany | @leilzahra

Leil Zahra is a trans-feminist queer filmmaker and researcher born in Beirut. Leil with embed with WITNESS and research content take-down in the North Africa West Asia region, the different (if not double) standards in the so-called "moderation," and the existing agreements between some governments in the region and Social Media platforms. Leil will work to bring more voices from the region to the table, joining efforts to challenge Euro and North American centrism in the debate around tech. Before joining Mozilla, Leil worked in various projects and organisations around digital security and data, researching the impacts of surveillance and data collection on human rights and political participation; and examining creative responses to the threats. They approach tech from a critical, de-colonial, and trans-feminist perspective.

Seun Ojedeji | Nigeria | @seun

Seun will embed with NSRC to support capacity building and establish connectivity among higher institutions within Ekiti State. He seeks to create a research education network that can serve as a platform for increased collaboration among the participating institutions, both in research and network service sharing. Seun is an experienced network engineer and manager, and holds a number of professional certifications and a degree in computer science from University of Ilorin. Prior to joining Mozilla, Seun served with a number of institutions in Nigeria, including University of Nigeria and Federal University Oye-EKiti. He is a current member and former vice chair of the AFRINIC board of directors, and also a member of the AtLarge Advisory committee (ALAC) to the ICANN board. Seun served as council chair of FOSSFA (Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa), and is also the vice president of OSFON (Open Source Foundation for Nigeria).

Namrata Primlani | India

Namrata is an OpenDoTT fellow, designer, researcher, and technology enthusiast working on a trustmark for IoT. Namrata’s work seeks to apply technology in creative ways to address social and cultural themes, with a particular interest in gender, artificial intelligence, social robots, and the philosophy of technology. She enjoys creating tangible artifacts, tinkering with code, and writing about the wider implications of technology. Her credentials include a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and a Master’s degree in New Media Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

Anouk Ruhaak | UK | @anoukruhaak

Anouk creates new models of data governance for the public good. As a leading architect and advocate of data trusts, she promotes models of data ownership which safeguard privacy and protect society from the negative externalities of data sharing. Anouk will embed with AlgorithmWatch to explore the creation of a data donation platform. Before joining Mozilla, Anouk worked as a consultant for the Open Data Institute and a data journalist for Platform Investico, where she researched investigative stories around surveillance and privacy. She has a background in political economics and software development, and founded several communities in the tech space.

Kostas Stathoulopoulos | UK | @kstathou

Kostas will develop an interactive tool that uses machine learning to facilitate the search for and recommendation of relevant and diverse collaborations in biomedical research. His aim is to increase access to high-quality research, accelerate its creation, and make it more inclusive by reducing its gender and geographic diversity gap. As part of his fellowship, he will also keep a “data science diary” — a collection of tutorials, code recipes, and break-downs of machine learning concepts to ease the access to data-driven scientific enquiries. Before joining Mozilla, Kostas was a senior data scientist at Nesta, UK’s Innovation Foundation, where he used open data and machine learning to build tools and provide timely evidence to policymakers.

Rian Wanstreet | U.S. | @rianeliza

Rian will analyze the quickly-developing AI/ML infrastructures and technologies in global agriculture. Her goal is to ensure that algorithmically-mediated systems in agriculture prioritize equitable and sustainable development. Rian is a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington in Communication/Science, Technology, & Society, and is a 2019-2020 UW Presidential Fellow. Prior to beginning her PhD, Rian had over 10 years experience working with social justice and digital rights organizations.