Laura DeNardis

Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of Communication
Dr. Laura DeNardis is a globally recognized Internet governance scholar and Professor and Interim Dean of the School of Communication at American University in Washington, DC. She also serves as Faculty Director of the Internet Governance Lab at American University. Her six books include The Internet in Everything: Freedom and Security in a World with No Off Switch (Yale University Press 2020); The Global War for Internet Governance (Yale University Press 2014); Opening Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability (MIT Press 2011); Protocol Politics: The Globalization of Internet Governance (MIT Press 2009); Information Technology in Theory (Thompson 2007 with Pelin Aksoy), and the co-edited book The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance (Palgrave 2016). With a background in information engineering and a doctorate in Science and Technology Studies (STS), her research studies the social and political implications of Internet technical architecture and governance. She is an affiliated fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project and served as its Executive Director from 2008-2011. She is an adjunct Senior Research Scholar in the faculty of international and public affairs at Columbia University and a frequent keynote speaker at the world’s most prestigious universities and institutions. She has previously taught at New York University and Yale Law School. Her expertise and scholarship have been featured in Science Magazine, The Economist, National Public Radio (NPR), New York Times, Time Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Slate Magazine, Reuters, Forbes, El Pais, La Repubblica, The Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. DeNardis served as the Director of Research for the Global Commission on Internet Governance from 2014-2016. Domestically, she is an appointed member of the U.S. Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy (ACICIP). She has more than two decades of experience as an expert consultant in Internet governance to Fortune 500 companies, foundations, and government agencies. She holds an AB in Engineering Science from Dartmouth College, an MEng from Cornell University, a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Tech, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from Yale Law School.