Berkman Center Board of Directors welcomes five new members

Cambridge, MA — The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University announced today that five new members have been appointed to its Board of Directors, bringing the total number of directors to thirteen. The new members are: Susan Crawford (Visiting Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at the Kennedy School of Government; Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School); Phillip Malone (Clinical Professor of Law; director, Cyberlaw Clinic); Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration; Chair, MBA Global Program); Jeffrey Schnapp (Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and Comparative Literature; faculty at the Graduate School of Design; Faculty Director, metaLAB (at) Harvard project); and Mark Wu (Assistant Professor of Law).   The renewed Board will help the Center continue to build collaborations that cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

“I am delighted to welcome these five outstanding faculty to our leadership group,” said Terry Fisher, Chair of the Board. “Each brings to the Center great expertise and energy – and in some cases a rich history of collaboration.  I very much look forward to working with all of them.”

The Board of Directors shapes the Berkman Center’s overall vision and makes significant financial, research, academic, personnel, governance, and other overarching organizational decisions. Terry Fisher remains the Chair of the Board.  Continuing as directors are: Professors Yochai Benkler, John Deighton, Charles Nesson, John Palfrey, Stuart Shieber, and Jonathan Zittrain. Urs Gasser continues as Executive Director, leading implementation of the vision and objectives set forth by the Board.

“The Berkman Center is a jewel, preeminent in the study of Internet governance and law, and it is also a model of innovative collaboration, research, and teaching,” said Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. “The participation of Susan Crawford, Phil Malone, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Jeffrey Schnapp, and Mark Wu ensures its ongoing dynamism and creativity, and I am delighted that the Center will have the benefit of their vision and expertise which ranges across the fields of intellectual property, internet technology and policy, communications law, cybercrime, cybersecurity, freedom of speech and anonymity, privacy, economics, and globalization. I salute the fine board service of Mark Edwards, Jack Goldsmith, Alex Keyssar, and Charles Ogletree. With the continuing leadership of Terry Fisher, Urs Gasser, Charles Nesson, Yochai Benkler, John Deighton, John Palfrey, Stuart Shieber, and Jonathan Zittrain and the new group of board members, the Berkman Center will dazzle, innovate, and set the standard.”

The Berkman community joins Dean Minow and the Board in thanking those members whose terms are coming to a close.  They have contributed enormously to the life of the Center, and in particular have helped to guide its transition from an organization rooted exclusively in the law school to a university-wide Interfaculty Initiative.

About the Berkman Center directors:

Yochai Benkler, Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, Harvard Law School, teaches and writes about the Internet and the emergence of networked economy and society, as well as the organization of infrastructure, such as wireless and broadband communications.

Susan Crawford, (Visiting) Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Prof. Crawford is on the faculty of Cardozo Law School, where she studies Internet policy, communications law and the use of technology by government.

John Deighton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, studies online marketing, conducted largely by close study of specific situations. Recent research has included the use of social media in the Obama/Clinton primary campaign, corporate use of blogging and Facebook presence, management styles and practices in the shift in the music industry from physical to digital product, and a series of cases on the processes by which viral videos were propagated online and offline.

William Fisher, WilmerHale Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Harvard Law School, focuses on Copyright, Patent, and Trademark Law and American legal History.

Urs Gasser, Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. His research and teaching focuses on information law and policy and the interaction between law and innovation.

Phillip Malone, Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Director of the Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Prof. Malone’s research and teaching focus on cybercrime, online speech and anonymity, online privacy, and intellectual property among the many dimensions of Internet law.

Charles Nesson, William F. Weld Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; founder of Berkman Center. Prof. Nesson’s myriad research interests include evidence, criminal law, cyberlaw and technology in teaching.

Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; Chair, MBA Global Program. Prof. Oberholzer-Gee’s research is centered on competitive strategy, international competition, and non-market strategy, a branch of strategic management that studies how companies best work with government and non-governmental groups. In recent work, he studied how entertainment companies can successfully manage the digital transition.

John G. Palfrey, Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law; Vice Dean, Library and Information Resources, Harvard Law School. Prof. Palfrey studies intellectual property, access to knowledge, Internet & democracy, and youth & technology. He is currently leading Berkman’s involvement in the Digital Public Library of America project.

Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and Comparative Literature; faculty at the Graduate School of Design; faculty director of the metaLAB (at) Harvard project. Prof. Schnapp is a cultural historian with research interests extending from antiquity to the present, largely centering around his pioneering work in the domains of digital humanities and digitally augmented approaches to cultural programming.

Stuart Shieber, James O. Welch, Jr. and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Director, Office for Scholarly Communication. Prof. Shieber studies communications across many dimensions, including programming languages, graphical languages and human linguistics. In his capacity in the Office of Scholarly Communication, Shieber spearheads efforts to open, share and preserve scholarship across Harvard.

Mark Wu, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. Prof. Wu’s research focuses on international trade and related issues of intellectual property law, economics and globalization. Prof. Wu is a specialist on legal and economic development of East Asia, particularly China.

Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Prof. Zittrain’s research includes digital property, privacy, and speech, and the role played by private "middlepeople" in Internet architecture. He has a strong interest in creative, useful, and unobtrusive ways to deploy technology in the classroom.

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.

###