Sarah Myers West

Sarah Myers West is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and an affiliate researcher at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society.

Sarah’s research centers on the critical study of technology and culture, with an emphasis on issues relating to privacy, security, and algorithmic bias. Her dissertation examines the cultural history and politics of encryption technologies from the 1960s to the present day, arguing that the history of encryption provides a counter-narrative to the culture of connectivity. In the next stage of her work, she will study the politics of diversity and inclusion in technological communities, with an emphasis on gender and artificial intelligence. She is the managing editor for Global Voices Advocacy’s Netizen Report, and worked as a Google Policy Fellow for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the summer of 2015.