2020 Assembly Student Fellowship
Cohort Members
NICHOLAS ANWAY
Harvard Kennedy School, 2023
Harvard Law School, 2023
Nicholas Anway is a joint JD/MPP candidate at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School. After beginning his career on President Obama’s 2012 campaign, Nicholas led digital strategy in roles at Fidelity Investments and several EdTech startups. Currently, Nicholas serves as a Digital Program Advisor to 2020 Vision Ventures and the Resilient Democracy Fund. At Harvard, his work focuses on related issues in Technology Law and Policy, focusing on AI governance, disinformation, and elections. Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Philosophy in Politics & Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh Honors College, where he was a Brackenridge Research Fellow.
ISABELLA BERKLEY
Harvard Law School, 2023
Isabella Berkley is a first year at Harvard Law School. She graduated from Amherst College in 2019 as a Black Studies and Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought double major. In between earning her undergraduate degree and starting and law school, Isabella worked as a Child Safety Investigator at Facebook. She has experience working to prevent voter disinformation, illicit trade, human trafficking, and child abuse on social media.
LEONIE BOLTE
Harvard Kennedy School, 2022
Leonie is an MPA Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a B.A. in Political Science (FU Berlin) and an M.Sc. in Management (HEC Paris). Prior to attending the Kennedy School, she worked for three years as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group, honing a passion for sustainable mobility. She is curious about digitalization and its effects on mobility, but also on broader society. At the Kennedy School, she specializes on the intersection of tech, digitalization and policy.
JIN PARK
Harvard Medical School, 2028
Jin is a second-year medical student at the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD program. Jin is interested in the theoretical dimensions of disinformation in a liberal democracy, on how market orderings, democratic institutions, and governance of technology firms create an environment that allows disinformation to thrive. He is interested particularly on how these mechanisms impact patients’ health and wellbeing.
ABTSAM SALEH
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2026
Abtsam is a doctoral student in Islamic studies at GSAS. Her research examines questions surrounding religion, technology, and transnationalism. Through her research and fellowships, she has explored a range of issues related to surveillance, algorithmic bias, the ethical use of AI, and the intersections of law and technology. Abtsam is currently an Outreach Student Fellow for the Program in Islamic Law at Harvard Law School and was previously the Managing Editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and a Science, Religion, and Culture Junior Fellow.
TERESA DATTA
Harvard John A. Paulsen School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 2022
Teresa is pursuing her M.S. in Data Science at the Harvard Institute for Applied Computational Science. She is passionate about applying artificial intelligence for social good and understanding the ethics and ramifications of these technologies. She has previously worked on data science teams at political non-profits, Johnson & Johnson, and Facebook. Teresa graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Chemistry from Cornell University.
YONG LI (EMILY) DICH
Harvard College, 2021
Emily is pursuing an A.B. in Computer Science and a secondary in Folklore and Mythology at the College.
SAMUEL DOERNBERG
Harvard Medical School, 2022
Sam is a medical student focused on ethics and healthcare policy. He has a background in philosophy and was a fellow in the NIH Department of Bioethics prior to attending medical school. He is interested in the spread of disinformation about a COVID-19 vaccine and various legal and ethical means to combat it. Outside of work, Sam likes to play tennis and squash, cook, and try to complete crossword puzzles.
ARUSHI SAXENA
Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2021
Arushi is a second year Masters in Design Engineering candidate at Harvard GSD and SEAS. Her research focus is on corporate governance and positioning the technology industry to better manage unintended consequences on society, cities, and the environment. Her academic interests also include data ethics, city science,
and public policy. Through Assembly, she is keen to explore how marginalized and underprivileged communities can be empowered and supported to protect themselves against disinformation. Previously, she advised senior leadership on business strategy and financial insights at LinkedIn and Formation.ai. Her overall professional experience spans strategy & operations, organizational behavior, and finance. Arushi graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.
DAVID STANSBURY
Harvard Kennedy School, 2021
David is a student at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to Harvard, he worked for eight years in the Middle East, focused on media and public affairs. His main academic interest is how the internet and social media, in addition to their exciting benefits, are fueling break downs in trust and widening divisions in society.
RANDLE STEINBECK
Harvard College, 2021
Randle is a senior at the College studying Mathematics and Government. His research and internship experience has revolved around national security policy and he is particularly interested in the ways in which disinformation undermines democratic institutions and jeopardizes national security.
RACHEL GIBIAN
Harvard Divinity School, 2022
Rachel is a MA candidate at Harvard Divinity School, studying Religion and Literature. Outside of the classroom, Rachel works as an analyst at Zignal Labs, a media intelligence platform. In this role, she helps journalists and national news outlets make sense of emerging stories on social media, with a particular focus on analyzing the scale and spread of misinformation.
OLIVIA GRAHAM
Harvard College, 2022
Olivia is a junior at the College, studying Computer Science and Mind, Brain and Behavior. Having worked as a software engineer and product manager at Google, she has seen firsthand how difficult it is to build resilient and impartial systems at scale. As a Student Fellow, she looks forward to exploring the intersection of technology and public policy, in order to better understand how government and Big Tech can work in tandem to combat disinformation.
MARK HAIDAR
Harvard Kennedy School, 2023
Harvard Law School, 2023
Mark is a Joint JD/MPP candidate at Harvard. A native of Metro Detroit, he holds a B.A. in Public Policy from the University of Michigan. Mark’s background is primarily in voting rights. In law school, Mark founded the Equal Democracy Project, a student organization focused on promoting dialogue on election law issues, as well as interned at the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice. He is interested in studying the role disinformation has on elections and democracy in the United States, and how social media platforms may combat such disinformation.
KATHERINE LOU
Harvard College, 2021
Katherine is a senior at Harvard College studying Sociology with a minor in Computer Science. She seeks to bridge the divide between social scientists and technologists to build solutions that make the world better for all. She is particularly interested in using technology to build community and human connections.
PAUL TEMBO
Harvard John A. Paulsen School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 2021
Paul is pursuing his MS in Data Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms. His work focuses on how to make AI algorithms fairer and how to scale Machine Learning algorithms to improve public service delivery at minimum cost. Previously, Paul worked for an education nonprofit, where he helped to evaluate the effectiveness of history education as a tool to combat hate, bigotry and racism. Paul is excited to be part of this talented group and to work on this critical subject.
VALENTINA VARGAS
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2021
Valentina is a second-year Master of Science student within the Global Health Department at the Chan School of Public Health. Her research interests include maternal health, reproductive health, and HIV particularly in LMICs (low- and middle-income countries). Disinformation concerning health has particularly severe consequences, so understanding it has become increasingly important to her. She's interested in exploring the wave of disinfo during this pandemic, which has bred on the rapidly changing news cycle and people's anxieties.
DANIEL WILSON
Harvard Business School, 2022
Danny is a first-year MBA student at Harvard Business School. A graduate of Harvard College, where he studied history of science, he worked as a strategy consultant and on the strategy team of the New York Times prior to returning to Cambridge.
DAVID XIANG
Harvard Medical School, 2024
David Xiang is a medical student at Harvard Medical School. He majored in History and Science while at Harvard College, and is excited to learn more about disinformation, and working and learning from everyone.