Advancing knowledge and practice wherever people interact with information and technology

Increasingly, public defenders are required to possess the technical skills and resources to deal with the tidal wave of data they now face every day, and they lack the resources and expertise to do so. The Public Defense Project, the capstone effort of MIMS students Sneha Chowdhary, Tiffany Pham, Rachel Warren, and Jyen Yiee Wong, hopes to help change this.

The project was chosen as the first winner of the Sarukkai Social Impact Award, which recognizes the I School capstone or final project with the greatest potential to solve important social problems and improve people’s lives in meaningful ways.

I School Professor Jenna Burrell will be joining Data & Society in August 2021 as Director of Research on a one-year rotation through August 2022.

Data & Society is an independent nonprofit research organization that studies the social implications of data-centric technologies and automation. 

Burrell, who was promoted to full professor at the I School this Spring, will be taking a temporary leave from the School to fill the Director of Research role at Data & Society, which is designed rotationally to bring senior, tenured academics into the institute for a dedicated period of time.