Ranking Digital Rights works with a variety of researchers and affiliates based around the world. Also see our Funders and Partners as well as our Governance page.
Director
Rebecca MacKinnon is the founding Director of Ranking Digital Rights. In the academic year 2019-2020, she is also a University of California Freedom of Speech and Civic Engagement Fellow and a UC San Diego Pacific Leadership Fellow. Author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (Basic Books, 2012) MacKinnon co-founded the citizen media network Global Voices. She serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a founding member of the Global Network Initiative.
Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon was CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief from 1998-2001 and Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2001-2003. Since leaving CNN in 2004, she has held fellowships at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press and Public Policy, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Open Society Foundation, and Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. In 2007-08 she taught online journalism and conducted research on Chinese internet censorship at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre, and was a 2013 adjunct lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She was also a visiting affiliate at the Annenberg School for Communication’s Center for Global Communications Studies. Before launching RDR, she was a senior research fellow (2012-2013) and Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow (2010-2012) at New America. She received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan.
Deputy Director
Jessica Dheere is Deputy Director of Ranking Digital Rights. She is founder, former executive director, and board member of SMEX, the Middle East’s leading digital rights research and advocacy organization. As a 2018–19 research fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, she launched the CYRILLA Collaborative. She is also a member of the 2019-20 class of Technology and Human Rights Fellow at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Dheere has presented at the Internet Governance Forum, the Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy, RightsCon, and the International Journalism Festival.
Her recent publications include “Misguiding Multistakeholderism: A Nongovernmental Perspective on the Arab IGF,” and a legal research methodology for locating digital rights-related law. She is a member of the inaugural Advisory Network to the Freedom Online Coalition, and co-chair of the policy committee of the Global Network Initiative.
She graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in art history and Latin American studies, and earned her master’s in media studies from the New School in New York City. In 2014, she was awarded a scholarship to study intensive Arabic as a Middlebury College Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace.
Research Director
Amy Brouillette is the Research Director of Ranking Digital Rights, responsible for planning and managing the research and production of the RDR Corporate Accountability Index. Prior to joining RDR, Brouillette served as director of the European Media Program at the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) at Central European University in Budapest. Her work at CMDS involved developing and managing the Center’s research and projects related to media and freedom of expression in Europe. In addition to her work at CMDS, Brouillette has also served as a research consultant and scholar-in-residence at the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS), Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera, and the Columbia Journalism Review.
Senior Program Manager
Lisa Gutermuth is Senior Program Manager of Ranking Digital Rights. Before joining RDR, Gutermuth was a project coordinator at Tactical Technology Collective, a digital rights organization based in Berlin, dedicated to the use of information for activism. She has primarily worked on digital security based projects such as, Security in-a-box, as well as projects using digital tools and open data for citizen-driven investigation and advocacy. Working with a range of different organizations over the years, her work has also touched on index creation, mapping, remote sensing, and data visualization. Gutermuth graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Hampshire, with bachelor degrees in international affairs and business administration, with a focus on international business and economics. She completed her master’s degree at Humboldt University in Berlin, in agricultural economics, where she wrote her thesis on the impact of satellite imagery application in agriculture.
Senior Policy Analyst
Nathalie Maréchal is Senior Policy Analyst at Ranking Digital Rights. She leads RDR’s policy engagement with stakeholders in government, civil society, and academia; coordinates the development of RDR’s policy positions; and publicly represents RDR with the media and at conferences around the world.
In 2019, Maréchal led the expansion of the RDR Corporate Accountability Index’s methodology to address human rights risks associated with tech companies’ business models, specifically the role that targeted advertising and algorithmic systems play in shaping internet users’ online experiences as Senior Research Analyst. She first joined RDR in 2014 as a COMPASS Fellow and was later an OTF Senior Fellow in Information Controls (2016), a Senior Research Fellow (2016-17), and a Senior Research Analyst (2018-19). In these roles she led methodology development concerning mobile ecosystems, helped develop the Digital Standard in partnership with Consumer Reports, and led a small team working to apply RDR’s privacy and human rights evaluative framework to develop indicators for evaluating national digital ID systems. Fluent in French and Spanish, Maréchal is a frequent speaker at digital rights events and academic conferences. Her work has been published by the International Journal of Communication, the Global Commission on Internet Governance, Media and Communication, Motherboard, and Slate. She holds a PhD in communication from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California, an MA in international communication from the School of International Service at American University, and a BA in international studies, also from AU. Maréchal lives in Washington, D.C.
Company Engagement Lead and Research Analyst
Jan Rydzak is the Company Engagement Lead and a Research Analyst at Ranking Digital Rights. He holds a PhD and MA in Government & Public Policy from the University of Arizona as well as an MA in Modern Languages from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland. Prior to joining RDR, Rydzak worked as Associate Director for Program at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) at Stanford University, where he analyzed global approaches to disinformation, new models of content moderation, and threats to human rights stemming from the faulty deployment and regulation of technology.
Rydzak is interested in how online decisions and dynamics reverberate in the offline world and how (dis)information flows in volatile circumstances. His work has spanned various environments, including the European Commission and the multi-stakeholder Global Network Initiative (GNI), where he served as a Google Policy Fellow. His doctoral research focused on the links between network shutdowns, connectivity, and street protest. He has published a report on the human-rights impact of network disruptions through GNI, a widely cited study linking communication blackouts with escalations of violence in India, and commentary in Foreign Policy, The Conversation, and the Hindustan Times. Rydzak is fluent in Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and French. He is based in Warsaw, Poland.
Research Analyst
Zak Rogoff is a Research Analyst at Ranking Digital Rights. He works for an internet that truly serves the interests of everyone, and he believes the human rights framework is the best way to get there. Rogoff has appeared on Al Jazeera and had writing and quotations published in outlets from Motherboard to the scientific journal Nature. At Access Now, he organized against internet shutdowns with a global coalition. Rogoff has also led campaigns at the Free Software Foundation and worked to rein in government surveillance at U.S.-based Fight for the Future and the Chilean NGO Derechos Digitales. His education is interdisciplinary. He completed an MA in communication, culture & technology from Georgetown University and a BS in robotics engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Rogoff lives in his native Washington, D.C. and speaks Spanish.
Research Analyst
Veszna Wessenauer is a Research Analyst with Ranking Digital Rights, working on RDR Index research. She holds an MA in Human Rights from Central European University, where she focused on issues related to internet governance and media freedom. Prior to joining RDR, she worked with several Hungarian and international NGOs, including as a policy analyst for Political Capital, a Hungarian think tank focused on democracy and rule of law in Central Europe. The focus of her work has been on internet governance, digital rights, disinformation, active citizenship, and civic engagement. She has also previously served as a research fellow at the Center for Media, Data and Society (Central European University – School of Public Policy), researching topics related to journalistic source protection, online privacy and data protection, and online political extremism. Wessenauer currently lives in Budapest, Hungary.
Research Analyst
Jie Zhang is a Research Analyst at Ranking Digital Rights, with a focus on researching Chinese tech companies ranked by RDR as well as relevant regulatory policies and laws.
Research Analyst and Editor
Afef Abrougui is a Research Analyst and Editor at Ranking Digital Rights, conducting research for the Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) Corporate Accountability Index, and working on a range of editorial tasks. Afef also works with Global Voices, where she serves as the Lead Editor for Advox, a project dedicated to promoting and reporting on freedom of expression and free access to information online. In 2017, Abrougui served as a research fellow at SMEX, a Beirut-based NGO that advocates for an open and free internet, where she conducted research assessing disclosures by mobile operators in the Arab region, using the RDR Index methodology. Abrougui holds a media studies MA from the University of Amsterdam, where she wrote her thesis on the implications of commercial social media platforms’ content removal policies in compliance with local laws.
Operations Associate
Kelly Ross is an Operations Associate at Ranking Digital Rights. In this position, she provides operational support to the RDR project. Prior to joining RDR, Ross worked at a lobbying firm that focused on information technology policy, where she served as a research and policy associate. Her past internships also include working as a public policy intern at the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress and working in the Public Affairs office of the U.S. Embassy in Muscat, Oman. She holds a B.A in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, where she mainly focused on Europe and the MENA region, studying global issues of security and justice, terrorism and political violence, and U.S. foreign policy.
Tech Lead
Ilja Sperling is the Tech Lead with Ranking Digital Rights, based in Berlin. At RDR, he supports data management, backend maintenance, and web development. Following a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies and Political Science at FU Berlin and University of Leeds, Sperling started a Master’s degree in Computational Social Science. His Master’s thesis (in progress) explores the potential of UI/UX research methods for research data management. Sperling was previously a student worker at the Berlin-based Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.
