Advanced Topics in Communication, Spring 2008, SPCM 496 CS, Prof. Sandvig.
Making the World Wireless: Service in Technology & Policy
 
     Course syllabus > Distinguished Panel of Public Service Advisors






(***) Distinguished Panel of Public Service Advisors

Matt Adams, Blast Theory.
Enrique Armijo, Covington & Burling.
Andrew Byde, HP Labs.
Ryan Croke, State of Illinois.
Kenneth Cukier, The Economist.
Greg DePriest, NBC Universal.
Robert Horvitz, Open Spectrum Foundation.
Nalini Kotamraju, Sun Microsystems.
Elizabeth Lyon, US Army Corps of Engineers.
Sascha Meinrath, New America Foundation.
Sean Meyn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Emily Murase, City and County of San Francisco.
Dawn Nafus, Intel Labs.
Michael Peralta, Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association.
Randal Pinkett, BCT Partners.
Matthew Rantanen, Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association.
Ben Scott, Free Press.
J. H. Snider, Independent Author and Researcher.
David Young, Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network.
Dieter Zinnbauer, Transparency International.


Matt Adams has worked as a professional artist for 16 years. He is co-founder of Blast Theory, a group of artists based in London that pioneered the use of new wireless media technologies in performances. The group's work is known for combining mobile devices, games, and virtual environments, for which they won the Golden Nica for Interactive Art at Prix Ars Electronica 2003.

Enrique Armijo is an attorney in the Media and Communications group of Covington & Burling, a law firm that has represented Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, eBay, Amazon.com, and the National Association of Broadcasters on spectrum auctions and other matters. Armijo also practices in international freedom of expression and development, and has advised the governments of Iraq, East Timor, Rwanda and Jordan. He is based in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Andrew Byde is a researcher at HP Labs, Bristol, where his work includes the study of decentralized systems, distributed control, self-organizing systems, and resource allocation. He holds a Royal Society Industrial Fellowship to the Engineering and Computer Science at Southampton University, and he holds the Ph.D. in Mathematics from Stanford.

Ryan Croke is a Policy Advisor in the Office of the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Illinois, where he works on the Governor's Broadband Deployment Council and on other efforts to improve the cost, speed, and availability of high-speed Internet service. He has also studied the implications of broadband video telephony for people with hearing impairments and other underserved populations.

Kenneth Cukier is a journalist specializing in technology and business based in Toyko. He is a business, telecommunications, and information correspondent for The Economist. His writing has focused on the international politics of technology, particularly new wireless communication systems. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs.

Greg DePriest is Vice President for Technology Policy at NBC Universal, where he works on spectrum policy and other technology issues. Before joining NBC, he directed digital television development efforts at Toshiba for twelve years. He also previously led the technical group at the Federal Communications Commission responsible for all technical rules related to broadcasting. DePriest is based in Washington, D.C.

Robert Horvitz is Director of the Open Spectrum Foundation, based in Prague. He has been working in wireless policy since 1979 as an author, researcher, and public-interest lobbyist. He has also worked with Internews and the Soros Foundation to build new radio stations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He previously taught contemporary art at RISD, MIT, and Yale and served as Art Editor for the Whole Earth Review.

Dr. Nalini Kotamraju is a Researcher at Sun Microsystems studying technology use. Her previous work has examined mobile wireless technology and the cultural worlds of young people and the early use of the pager in the US. She is also the author of the comprehensive bibliography of Mobile Devices/SMS/Instant Messaging Social Science Research. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Elizabeth Lyon is a Research Geographer at the Topographic Engineering Center of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Alexandria, Virginia. Her research includes economic geography, socio-economic development, and the spatial diffusion of wireless communication systems. Her interest in development stems in part from time spent in Uganda, Chile, Russia, Georgia, Kenya and (most recently) Madagascar.

Dr. Emily Murase is the Executive Director of the Department on the Status of Women for the City and County of San Francisco. She previously served as a specialist on the Asia-Pacific Region for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and as Director for International Economic Affairs for the Clinton Administration in the White House. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University.

Sascha Meinrath is the Research Director for the Wireless Future Program of the New America Foundation, a non-profit public policy institute in Washington, D.C. He also coordinates the Open Source Wireless Coalition and is a director of CTCnet, a network of more than 1,000 organizations dedicated to improving their communities through technology. He has been described as a "community Internet pioneer."

Dr. Sean Meyn is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Control Techniques for Complex Networks, a fellow of the IEEE, and a former Fulbright scholar to India. His research on communication networks is supported by the US National Science Foundation and Motorola, among others.

Dr. Dawn Nafus is a research anthropologist with the People and Practices Research Group (PaPR) at Intel Labs in Portland. Her recent research has focused on wireless communication technology and its relation to time, mobility, and gender. Nafus has also written on the use and meaning of technology in Russia. She holds a D.Phil in Anthropology from Cambridge University.

Michael Peralta is a Network Engineer for the Tribal Digital Village, a high-speed wireless broadband network connecting 18 Indian Reservations in San Diego County. His passion is to develop interest in technology among local tribal youth. Mr. Peralta has also worked as a tutor/mentor at the Rincon Indian Reservation, where he is a tribal member.

Dr. Randal Pinkett is CEO of BCT Partners, a multimillion dollar consulting firm based in Newark with particular expertise in nonprofit and community technology. He co-founded Access One, a project to equip affordable housing with wireless broadband. Pinkett was also recently the winner of season four of NBC TV's The Apprentice. He is a Rhodes Scholar and holds S.M. (electrical engineering), M.B.A., and Ph.D. (media arts and sciences) degrees from MIT.

Matthew Rantanen is the Director of Technology for the Tribal Digital Village (TDV), a high-speed wireless broadband network connecting 18 Indian Reservations in San Diego County. At TDV he manages the infrastructure team and develops and manages a variety of Web-based applications. He previously worked in user interface development and graphic design for Blue Mountain Arts, a division of Excite@Home.

Ben Scott is the Policy Director for Free Press, a national nonpartisan organization working to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates. He previously worked as a telecommunications fellow in the office of Rep. Bernie Sanders in the U.S. House of Representatives, and previously co-edited the books Our Unfree Press and The Future of Media. He is based in Washington, D.C.

Dr. J. H. Snider is a public interest researcher in the area of wireless policy and authored Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power. His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, and The Atlantic Monthly. He previously served on the staffs of Sen. Wyden and Sen. Leahy in the U.S. Senate. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University.

David Young is the co-founder of the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) and Senior Software Engineer at OJC Technologies in Urbana. He is CUWiN's technical lead, where he implemented Hazy-Sighted Link State routing, a dynamic wireless mesh routing protocol. He also develops drivers for wireless cards and contributes patches and kernel improvements to NetBSD, a free operating system.

Dr. Dieter Zinnbauer is the Chief Editor of the Global Corruption Report for Transparency International. He previously worked on information technology and development issues for the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme. He is a past fellow of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs and holds the Ph.D. in development studies from the London School of Economics.


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