Laura De Nardis

Laura DeNardis , M.Eng, Ph.D., is a leading scholar of Internet governance and a tenured Professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, DC.  Her five books include 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 a forthcoming edited volume The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance (Palgrave 2015). With a background in information engineering and a doctorate in Science and Technology Studies (STS), her research studies some of the most pressing global Internet policy problems of the contemporary area, such as cybersecurity, digital privacy, freedom of expression online, and geopolitical struggles over control of the Internet.

Dr. DeNardis currently serves on the Global Commission on Internet Governance as the Director of Research. Domestically, she is an appointed member of the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy (ACICIP). She is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada. She previously served as the Executive Director of the Yale Law School Information Society Project from 2008-2011 and was a Lecturer at Yale Law School.

Her expertise and scholarship have been featured in Science Magazine, The Economist, National Public Radio, New York Times, ABC news, Bloomberg, Time Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Slate, Reuters, Forbes, The Atlantic, the Globe and Mail, Investor’s Business Daily, and the Wall Street Journal and she is a frequent speaker at the world’s most prestigious universities and events. Dr. DeNardis holds an AB in Engineering Science from Dartmouth College, a Master of Engineering degree from Cornell University, a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Tech, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from Yale Law School. She resides in Washington, DC.

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Books

• Laura DeNardis, The Global War for Internet Governance. Yale University Press 2014.
• Laura DeNardis, editor, Opening Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability. The MIT Press 2011.
• Laura DeNardis, Protocol Politics: The Globalization of Internet Governance. The MIT Press 2009. 
• Laura DeNardis, co-authored with Pelin Aksoy, Information Technology in Theory. Thomson 2007. 
• (In press) Laura DeNardis, co-editor, The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance. Palgrave 2015.

Selected Published Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• Laura DeNardis, “The Internet Design Struggle between Security and Anonymity,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 2015.
• Laura DeNardis (with Andrea Hackl), “Internet Governance by Social Media Platforms,” Telecommunications Policy, 2015.
• Laura DeNardis (with Mark Raymond), “Multistakeholderism: Anatomy of an Inchoate Global Institution,” International Theory, 2015.
• Laura DeNardis, "The Social Media Challenge to Internet Governance," in William Dutton and Mark Graham, eds., Society and the Internet: How Information and Social Networks are Changing Our Lives. Oxford University Press 2014.
• Laura DeNardis, “Internet Points of Control as Global Governance,” in Mark Raymond and Gordon Smith, eds., Organized Chaos: Reimagining the Internet. Centre for International Governance Innovation 2014_._
• Laura DeNardis, "The Emerging Field of Internet Governance," in William Dutton, editor, Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Laura DeNardis, “Hidden Levers of Internet Control: An Infrastructure-Based Theory of Internet Governance,” Journal of Information, Communication & Society, Volume 15, Issue 3: 1-19, 2012.
• Laura DeNardis, "e-Governance Policies for Interoperability and Open Standards," Policy and Internet, Volume 2, Issue 3, Article 6: 129-164, 2010.
• Laura DeNardis, "The Global Politics of Interoperability," in Gaelle Krikorian and Amy Kapcznski, editors, Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property. Cambridge: Zone Books, 2010.
• Laura DeNardis, "Open Standards and Global Politics," International Journal of Communications Law & Policy, Issue 13, Special Internet Governance Edition, Winter 2008-2009.
• Laura DeNardis, "IPv6: Standards Controversies around the Next Generation Internet," in Ian Inkster, Graeme Gooday, and James Sumner, editors, History of Technology, Vol. 28. London: Continuum, 2008.
• Laura DeNardis, "A History of Internet Security," in Karl de Leeuw, editor, The History of Information Security. New York: Elsevier, 2007.

Education

• PhD in Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Tech
• Postdoctoral fellowship, Yale Law School
• Master of Engineering degree from Cornell University
• AB in Engineering Science, Dartmouth College

Areas of focus include cybersecurity, Internet governance, digital economy, and civic tech.