Andrew J. Zahuranec is Research Fellow at The GovLab, where he is responsible for studying how advances in science and technology can improve governance. In previous positions at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and National Governors Association, he worked on issues as far-ranging as election security, the commercial space industry, and the opioid epidemic. He has a Master of Arts in Security Policy Studies from the George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Intelligence from Mercyhurst University.

Eugenia Olliaro served as a Programme Manager at UNICEF headquarters and the global UNICEF lead of the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative. Through the initiative, Eugenia advocated for a more responsible data handling culture within UNICEF and partners (governments, CSOs, and others), and supported UNICEF offices and programmes to promote the best interest of the child when using data for and about them. Eugenia's law background has brought her to work in different countries with academia, CSOs and a worker's union. She worked for UNICEF for several years and was posted in Kenya and Tajikistan before moving to headquarters in NY.

As Chief, Data Governance and Strategy, Friederike Schueuer leads data governance and strategy initiatives at UNICEF headquarters. In part, her work is to improve data governance good practice within UNICEF as an organization, enabling UNICEF staff to make the most of UNICEF and partner data. In part, her work is to support partners including governments to implement child needs-centric data governance principles in practice and context through the Responsible Data for Children (RD4C) initiative. Prior to UNICEF, Friederike served in roles across the private sector and academia, giving her a broad perspective on new capabilities, emerging opportunities, and paths to impact.

Huayizi is a consultant for UNICEF's Data Governance Fit for Children Programme, where she leads youth engagement initiatives and communication strategies. She also conducts research to develop policy recommendations on data governance. Previously, she worked with international media organizations, including The New York Times and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford.

Krisana Messerli served as a Programme Officer at UNICEF’s Chief Data Office at Headquarters. She worked on the Data Governance fit for Children Programme and in particular its implementation in Administrative Data Systems. Krisana previously worked for the UN Resident Coordinator Office in Burundi where she contributed to the development of the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), notably the M&E framework and worked closely with UN entities, bilateral development partners and the National Statistical Office on questions pertaining to the modernization of the national statistical system. Prior to that, she spent two years working for UNFPA in Bolivia, working both on Gender-based violence as well as population data.

Sara Marcucci is a Research Fellow at The GovLab, and her work focuses on data governance, tech policy, and digital rights. Before joining The GovLab, she worked at the Open Data Institute in London, where she advised the UK Government and the EU Commission developing policy options to create an enabling environment for bottom-up data institutions. Previous to that, Sara worked as a research and project manager at Nesta Italia, where she oversaw the Tech for Good department, focusing on projects related to democratic innovation, Internet governance, and citizen participation. She holds a MSc in Data & Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she then worked as a researcher and investigated the intersections between datafied urbanism and data justice.

Stefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer of the Governance Laboratory @NYU (GovLab) where he is responsible for building a research foundation on how to transform governance using advances in science and technology.

He is the Curator and Editor of the Living Library and The Digest.

Verhulst’s latest scholarship centers on how technology can improve people’s lives and the creation of more effective and collaborative forms of governance. Specifically, he is interested in the perils and promise of collaborative technologies and how to harness the unprecedented volume of information to advance the public good.

Before joining NYU full time, Verhulst spent more than a decade as Chief of Research for the Markle Foundation, where he continues to serve as Senior Advisor. At Markle, an operational foundation based in New York, he was responsible for overseeing strategic research on all the priority areas of the Foundation including, for instance: transforming health care using information and technology, re-engineering government to respond to new national security threats, improving people’s lives in developing countries by connecting them to information networks, developing multi-stakeholder networks to tackle global governance challenges, changing education through information technology et al. Many of Markle’s reports have been translated into legislation and executive orders, and have informed the creation of new organizations and businesses.

He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Culture and Communications at New York University, Senior Research Fellow for the Center for Media and Communications Studies at Central European University in Budapest; and an Affiliated Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Global Communications Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communications.

Previously at Oxford University he co-founded and was the Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio Legal Studies, and also served as Senior Research Fellow of Wolfson College. He is still an emeritus fellow at Oxford. He also taught several years at the London School of Economics.

Verhulst was the UNESCO Chairholder in Communications Law and Policy for the UK, a former lecturer on Communications Law and Policy issues in Belgium, and Founder and Co-Director of the International Media and Info-Comms Policy and Law Studies at the University of Glasgow School of Law. He has served as a consultant to numerous international and national organizations, including the Council of Europe, the European Commission, UNESCO, World Bank, UNDP, USAID, the UK Department for International Development among others. He has been a grant recipient of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Markle Foundation.

Verhulst has authored and co-authored several books, including: In Search of the Self: Conceptual Approaches to Internet Self Regulation (Routledge, 2001); Convergence in European Communications Regulation (Blackstone, 1999); EC Media Law and Policy (AWL, 1998); Legal Responses to the Changing Media (OUP, 1998); and Broadcasting Reform in India (OUP, 1998) and The Routledge Handbook of Media Law (2013).

Latest reports and papers include, for instance, Innovations in Global Governance: Toward a Distributed Internet Governance Ecosystem (2014) and The Open Data Era in Health and Social Care (2014), and are also available here. Verhulst blogs also regularly on a variety of topics. For instance: Data Collaboratives: Exchanging Data to Improve People’s Lives (2015), and Reimagining Cities (2014).

Verhulst is also founder and editor of numerous journals including the International Journal of Communications Law and Policy, and the Communications Law in Transition Newsletter.