Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Center for Research on Computation and Society Join Fellowship Programs

Integration will foster multidisciplinary research opportunities at Harvard University

Cambridge, MA - The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Center for Research in Computation and Society (CRCS), based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), have joined their fellowship programs for the 2009-2010 academic year. This collaboration will intensify both Centers’ exchanges across the University and stimulate multidisciplinary research efforts in areas ranging from ethics to economics.

“Integration with the CRCS program is a major milestone along the Berkman Center’s transition into its new status as a University-wide initiative,” said Berkman Center co-founder and faculty co-director Jonathan Zittrain. “CRCS affiliates have expertise in areas that are highly complementary to those of the Berkman community we have assembled for the upcoming year. We’re looking forward to learning from CRCS’s work and producing new interdisciplinary research.”

“The collaboration with the Berkman Center will greatly advance CRCS’s mission of driving computer science research towards important societal problems,” said Salil Vadhan, Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at SEAS and current director of CRCS. “By facilitating deeper interactions with social scientists and legal scholars, fellows will be able to explore entirely new avenues of research and existing projects will become equally enriched.”

The combination of fellowship programs will provide for regular community discussions through which joint ventures and grants may be developed in such areas of mutual interest as privacy, human cooperation, voting, and crowd-sourcing. The 2009-2010 year will provide a basis for exploration of a permanent, formal relationship between Berkman and CRCS.

About the Berkman Center for Internet & Society
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society. More information can be found at http://cyber.harvard.edu.

About the Center for Research in Computation and Society
The Center for Research in Computation and Society, based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), was founded to develop a new generation of ideas and technologies designed to address some of society’s most vexing problems. The Center brings computer scientists together with economists, psychologists, legal scholars, ethicists, neuroscientists, and other academic colleagues across the University and throughout the world, to address fundamental computational problems that cross disciplines, and to create new technologies informed by societal constraints.  More information can be found at http://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/

Contacts
Seth Young
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
+1.617.384.9135
syoung@cyber.harvard.edu

Michael Patrick Rutter
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
+1.617.496.3815
mrutter@seas.harvard.edu