Global Digital Policy Incubator

Eileen served as the first US Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, during the Obama Administration. She then served as Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy. Eileen is an adjunct professor at Stanford's CDDRL and a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy; the University of Essex Advisory Board on Human Rights, Big Data and Technology; and the Benetech Advisory Board. She served on the World Economic Forum Council on the Future of Human Rights. Previously, she was a technology litigator at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley. She holds a BA from Dartmouth, an M.T.S. from Harvard, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an MA in East Asian Studies from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in Ethics and Social Theory from the GTU Cooperative Program with UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and he continues to lead its programs on Arab Reform and Democracy and Democracy in Taiwan. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His sixth and most recent book, In Search of Democracy (Routledge, 2016), explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his work on democratic development, particularly in Africa and Asia. He has also edited or co-edited more than 40 books on democratic development around the world.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves is a Fellow at Stanford's Global Digital Policy Incubator. In a long and distinguished career as an Estonian public servant, Ilves has served as Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to the United States and Canada (1993-1996), as a member of the Estonian Parliament (2002-2004), and as the President-elect of Estonia from 2006-2016. In 2016, Ilves became chair of The World Economic Forum working group The Global Futures Council on Blockchain Technology. In 2017 he joined Stanford University as a Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, a center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. His international awards and honorary degrees include Knight of Freedom Award by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation (2016), the Aspen Prague Award by the Aspen Institute (2015), the Freedom Award by the Atlantic Council (2014) and the NDI Democracy Award by the National Democratic Institute (2013). His Honorary Degrees include an Honorary Degree from St. Olaf College, US (2014), an Honorary Degree from the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland (2010), and an Honorary Degree from Tbilisi University, Georgia (2007).

Jan Rydzak is a Research Scholar and Associate Director for Program at Stanford University's Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi). He holds a PhD and an MA in Government & Public Policy from the University of Arizona as well as an MA in Modern Languages (Portuguese, Spanish, and French) from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland. Jan has done research and policy work on technology and human rights across various environments, including the European Commission and the multi-stakeholder Global Network Initiative (through a Google Fellowship). His doctoral research focused on deliberate network shutdowns and their effects on collective action, across countries and subnationally (India). He has published a report on shutdowns and human rights through GNI as well as commentary in Foreign Policy. He is professionally interested in digital activism and repression in countries where connectivity is expanding vigorously, information vacuums and crises, the linguistic aspects of disinformation and content moderation, tech policy in the European Union, and the use of technology for development.

Megan Metzger is a Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) Program. Before coming to Stanford, she completed a PhD in Politics at NYU as a member of the Social Media and Political Participation Lab and was a Postdoctoral scholar in Russian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also holds an MA in Political Science with a focus on European Governance from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a BA in Anthropology and International Studies from Macalester College. Megan’s research is focused on how changes in technology change how individuals and states use and have access to information, and how this affects political behavior. She has worked on these questions in the context of the Gezi Park Protests in Turkey, the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine, and the Russian state’s information strategies.

Roya Pakzad serves as a Research Associate and Project Leader in Technology and Human Rights at Stanford’s Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi). She also works with Stanford's program in Iranian Studies researching information and communication technologies in human rights in Iran. At GDPi, Roya researches human rights implications of new and emerging technologies. Her current focus is on human rights impact assessment of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, as well as the human rights policies of technology companies. Born and raised in Tehran, Roya holds degrees from Shahid Beheshti University (B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering), the University of Southern California (M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering) and Columbia University (M.A. in Human Rights Studies). Prior to entering the field of human rights, she worked at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) as an electrical engineer. Her interests also include the role of technology in marginalized communities, including refugees, incarcerated populations, and women in the developing world. She writes a newsletter called Humane AI (link).

Sarahi is a program associate at Stanford's Global Digital Policy Incubator, where she supports research programs and events that attempt to answer the most difficult and pressing policy issues facing digital technology and its relationship to democracy and human rights. Since GDPi's launch in 2017, Sarahi has specialized in coordinating the program's events, meetings, and seminars, as well as assisting in program management, communications strategy, and stakeholder relations. Passionate about team building, Sarahi also manages day to day operations and workflow processes for the GDPi team. Prior to joining GDPi, Sarahi was a program associate the International Republican Institute (IRI), where she supported the Institutes' democracy and governance programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. During her time at IRI, she specialized in closed and closing society, pioneering program models to assist civil society in challenging contexts. Sarahi graduated from Stanford in 2014 with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations with honors and she received a Master of Arts in American History in 2015 from Stanford as well.