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Berkman Community Newcomers: Mary-Catherine Lader

This post is part of a series featuring interviews with some of the fascinating individuals who joined our community for the 2014-2015 year. Conducted by our 2014 summer interns (affectionately known as "Berkterns"), these snapshots aim to showcase the diverse backgrounds, interests, and accomplishments of our dynamic 2014-2015 community.

Q+A with Mary-Catherine Lader

Berkman Affiliate and JD/MBA Candidate, Harvard Law School & Harvard Business School
interviewed in summer 2014 by Berkterns Hannah Offer and Priyanka Suresh

What sparked your interest in the study of cyberspace?

I’ve always been interested in the flow of information. When I was fourteen, I started working in newsrooms after begging NBC News to let me log feeds for them after school. I was interested in how people find out what’s happening in the world, and how multi-national businesses channel information to individuals. I kept working in media through high school and college, at CNN, Bloomberg, Reuters, and TIME. 

Over time I realized I was interested in how we communicate, and the future of information industries. That led to an interest in how law shapes communication and, especially in this global transition period for media, how the ecosystem might be better designed for more democratic communication structures. I was actually working on Wall Street when I decided that I wanted to study cyberlaw, and this field is essentially what drove me to apply to Harvard.

What are you currently working on?

I’m working on three things: broadband access for low-income Americans, the future of premium content distribution, and how digital platforms are changing work.

Broadband Access:
From a summer at Comcast selling Internet and TV service to low-income Americans, to a mobile money startup in Kenya, I’ve focused on how technology reaches and transforms the lives of the working poor. How can we promote access to information, regardless of price?

The Future of Digital Media and Content Distribution:
Media is changing rapidly, and no one quite knows how the system will settle. As barriers to distribution and the cost of production fall, there’s a lot of debate about whether consolidated media companies or independent creators can gain more, on a relative basis. A handful of businesses are trying to start fresh, digital-first, including the Chernin Group, where I worked last summer.

Work and Digital Platforms:
The third area is what I hope to focus on at Berkman: work and digital platforms. Whether it’s Uber, TaskRabbit, HourlyNerd, Legal Hero, or any other company, digital platforms (including the “sharing economy”) are transforming the way that we work, the way that we design our lives around work, and, perhaps most importantly, the relationship between the worker and the employer.

How did you become interested in collaborating with the Berkman Center?

I had read Jonathan Zittrain’s book and followed Larry Lessig, Creative Commons, and Ethan Zuckerman since college, so the Berkman Center had been on my radar for some time. When I was deciding where to go to law school, the opportunity to get involved with the Berkman Center was a huge part of my decision.

What issues do you expect to explore as a Berkman Center affiliate? Will you be contributing primarily to the law projects?

I would love to work on some of Berkman’s existing broadband access projects. It’s exciting to be at a place where there are so many experts—people who’ve been in the weeds in these fields and working on these central issues for such a long time. To the extent that I have some private sector experience, perhaps I can contribute a slightly different perspective.

Considering your background in the private sector, do you think you will bring a different (i.e., non-academic) perspective to some of the cyberlaw and digital media issues explored at Berkman?

In an academic context, you can think creatively about how the world should work, how you think the Internet should work, and what policies would protect certain principles. In the private sector, you encounter why it’s hard to change something, and why elements of industry aren’t easily fixed. Understanding some of the barriers, and how decision-makers in the corporations that control much of the Internet are incentivized, are helpful in exploring shifts in policy, albeit in the context of the realities of industry.

Most of the organizations responsible for broadband access, content distribution, and giving a voice to people around the world through news distribution are businesses. To promote economic access to information, we need to understand how media and technology businesses work, how capital is allocated for new projects, and how risks are taken, especially as American businesses expand overseas. I believe in business as a way to effect change—to drive economic growth, to promote new ways of thinking, to adjust industry structure and policy regimes—and that’s why I wanted to go to business school.

Is there anything in particular that you hope to accomplish as a Berkman affiliate?

It’s exciting to be one step closer to the thinking and the work that comes out of the Berkman Center and its community. I hope to explore the future of work and broadband access further, and to contribute to the community and discourse.