Eight students, including one two-person team, are being awarded Human Rights & Technology Fellowships in the program’s third year. Three undergraduates and five graduates will be exploring human rights issues that are either aided or exploited through the use of technology, including cryptotechnology, surveillance technology, social media, and internet censorship.

Human Rights & Technology Fellows, 2020-2021

Undergraduate students

1. Alison Wang, Class of 2024, will examine the use of cryptocurrency in sex trafficking.
2. Jeffrey Shen, Class of 2023, will investigate the use of ShotSpotter, a surveillance technology that may violate privacy rights and worsen racist policing.
3. Kelly Wu, class of 2022, will explore the changes in workers’ rights as the country transitions to new technologies of electricity production. 

Graduate students

1. Timothy Loh, PhD student in HASTS, will analyze how “allyship” with new rights develops via social media.
2. Raha Peyravi, PhD student in HASTS, will interview local actors circumventing internet censorship in Iran with technical and social innovations.
3. Srishti Kamat & Tomás Guarna, both MSc students in Comparative Media Studies, will research how guest workers in Singapore who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 are being aided digitally by human rights activists.
4. Alex Reiss Sorokin, PhD candidate in HASTS, will conduct three case studies to show how private initiatives to provide internet access to remote regions shape the “right to connect.”