Experts

CIGI has convened a knowledge-sharing network that is multidisciplinary in nature. This network has served as a collaborative space to facilitate expert views, opinions and recommendations to formulate an impactful report for key government and civil society stakeholders.

The following list of experts is indicative of those who have contributed to the development of this report and the subsequent engagement events that will follow upon the release of this publication.

Samantha Bradshawis a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University, where she works at the Internet Observatory and the Digital Civil Society Lab. Samantha is a leading expert on technology and democracy. Her dissertation research examined the producers and drivers of disinformation, and how technology (artificial intelligence, automation and big data analytics) enhance and constrain the spread of disinformation online. At the forefront of theoretical and methodological approaches for studying, analyzing and explicating the complex relationship between social media and democracy, Samantha’s research has helped advance academic debate, public understanding and policy discussions around the impact of technology on political expression and privacy.

Kailee Hilt is a research associate at CIGI, where her primary responsibilities involve contributing to the planning and execution of research output. She also provides research support and analysis on issues related to emerging technology, data governance, cybersecurity and online gender-based violence.

Eric Jardine is a CIGI fellow and an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Tech. He researches the uses and abuses of the dark web, measuring trends in cybersecurity, how people adapt to changing risk perceptions when using new security technologies, and the politics surrounding anonymity-granting technologies and encryption. Eric was a contributor to Governing Cyberspace during a Crisis in Trust, an essay series on the economic potential — and vulnerability — of transformative technologies and cybersecurity. Florian Kerschbaum is associate professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo and director of the Waterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute. Florian’s interests lie in data security and privacy in data management, machine learning and blockchains. He extended real-world systems with cryptographic security mechanisms to achieve (some) provable security guarantees. His work has been applied to products for databases, supply chain management and radio frequency identification tracking.

Ulrike Klinger is the chair for digital democracy at the European New School of Digital Studies in Frankfurt, Germany, and an associated researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin, Germany. Ulrike’s research focuses on political and digital communication: the transformation of digital public spheres, the role of digital media in election campaigns and the impact of technologies on public communication (for example, algorithms, social bots).

Michael Pal is associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and director of the Public Law Group. Michael is an expert on the law of democracy, comparative constitutional law and election law. He is currently working on projects related to voter suppression, electoral management bodies, election administration in democratic transitions and democratic theory. In 2017, he served as a commissioner with the Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Ontario, whose recommendations to add two new seats and to create the province’s first Indigenous-majority riding and second Francophone-majority riding were adopted by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

Aaron Shull is managing director and general counsel at CIGI, where he acts as a strategic liaison between CIGI’s research initiatives and other departments while managing CIGI’s legal affairs and advising senior management on a range of legal, operational and policy matters. He has substantive expertise in international law, global security and internet governance. Aaron coordinated two CIGI essay series: Security, Intelligence and the Global Health Crisis and Modern Conflict and Artificial Intelligence.

Wesley Wark is a CIGI senior fellow and adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa’s Centre on Public Management and Policy. Wesley recently retired from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, where he had taught since 1988. He served two terms on the prime minister of Canada’s Advisory Council on National Security (2005–2009) and on the Advisory Committee to the President of the Canada Border Services Agency (2006–2010). More recently, he provided advice to the minister of public safety on national security legislation and policy. He has appeared on numerous occasions before parliamentary committees and comments regularly for the media on national security issues. Wesley was also an editor for the 2020 CIGI digital essay series titled Security, Intelligence and the Global Health Crisis. He is a former editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security and now serves on the journal’s advisory board.

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