Speakers/Panelists

June 10:

Keynote Speaker: Lucy Bernholz, Director, Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS & Senior Research Scholar, Stanford PAC 

Lucy Bernholz is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab. She has been a Visiting Scholar at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Hybrid Reality Institute, and the New America Foundation. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including the annual Blueprint Series on Philanthropy and the Social Economy, the 2010 publication Disrupting Philanthropy, and her 2004 book Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets: The Deliberate Evolution. She is a co-editor of Philanthropy in Democratic Societies (2016, Chicago University Press) and of the forthcoming volume Digital Technology and Democratic Theory. She writes extensively on philanthropy, technology, and policy on her award winning blog, philanthropy2173.com. 

She studied history and has a B.A. from Yale University, where she played field hockey and captained the lacrosse team, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. 

Ann Brill, Dean, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas

Ann Brill joined the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas in 2000, and became Dean of the program in 2004. Dean Brill also serves as the President of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC), in addition to taking many other national leadership roles. 

Hyunjin Seo, NSF Project PI, Associate Professor & Director of Center for Digital Inclusion 

Hyunjin Seo is an associate professor of digital/emerging media (Oscar Stauffer Chair beginning fall 2021) at University of Kansas as well as founding director of the KU Center for Digital Inclusion. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University where she was a resident fellow from fall 2018 to summer 2019. Her research examines how social collaborative networks facilitated by digital communication technologies affect social change at local, national and international levels. She has published over 50 journal articles and book chapters in this and other related areas. Currently, Seo leads a National Science Foundation-funded technology education program supporting marginalized women’s technology access and use. In addition, she serve as the project director for a National Endowment for the Arts-funded interactive visual art project aimed at facilitating conversations about structural barriers and societal biases facing women recently released from jail or prison as well as their wisdom and resilience in navigating challenges in returning to society. She is also the author of Networked Collective Actions: The Making of an Impeachment (forthcoming, Oxford University Press), which examines intricate relationships between social institutions and agents during South Korean protests directed at political changes. 

Moderator: Patricia Gaston, Lacy C. Haynes Professor, University of Kansas & former editor at The Washington Post   

Patricia E. (Weems) Gaston (j'81) joined the University of Kansas two years ago after a long, stellar career at The Washington Post, where she was an editor who worked on several desks including National, Foreign and Editorial. Before coming to the Post in 1997, Gaston worked at the Dallas Morning News, where she was an assistant foreign editor and was co-editor of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on violence against women. 

She grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1981. She has a master's degree in sports management from The George Washington University. 

In 2013, she was a Leadership Institute Fellow with the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy program. In her spare time, Gaston has worked as a kitchen, case management and advocacy volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen and served on the agency's Volunteer Advocacy Advisory Committee. She also served two, two-year terms as the co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of the American Association of University Women.  

Since returning to KU to teach, she advises the staff of the University Daily Kansan, led the school's search for the Knight Chair in Audience and Community Engagement for News, serves as a mentor in the Rising Scholars Program, is a member of the William Allen White Foundation, the University's Committee on Faculty Rights, Privileges & Responsibilities, the school's Curriculum and Grievance committees and the William Allen White National Citation Award Nomination Working Group. In the spring, she was elected to Faculty Senate and is a member of the executive committee.   

Panelist: Angela Siefer, Executive Director, National Digital Inclusion Alliance

Angela Siefer is the Executive Director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. Angela has been working in the field we now call digital inclusion since 1997. From physically setting up computer labs in underserved areas and managing local digital inclusion programs to consulting for the US. Department of Commerce and testifying before Congress, Angela develops national strategies and solutions from the ground up. In 2015, Angela helped found the National Digital Inclusion Alliance,  a unified voice for home broadband access, public broadband access, personal devices and local technology training and support programs. Angela serves on the Board of Directors of the Schools, Health, & Libraries Broadband Coalition. Government Technology Magazine named Angela one of their Top 25 Doers, Dreams, and Drivers of 2019.    

Panelist: Stanley Adams, Director, Kansas Office of Broadband Development

Stanley Adams is the Director of the Kansas Office of Broadband Development. In his role, Mr. Adams develops integrated broadband strategies for the state, improves accessibility and adoption of broadband connectivity across the state, leads broadband service provider data collection and mapping activities, develop and launch local E-Communities programs targetting demonstrated economic growth, improved network deployments and sustainability. 

Panelist: Tom Esselman, Executive Director, PCs for People 

Tom was a product development executive with Hallmark Cards in Kansas City for 22 years, retiring in 2012 to enter nonprofit leadership.  He spent three years in Sarasota, Florida focused on innovation for older adults. In 2015 he returned to Kansas City as CEO of Connecting For Good, dedicated to bridging the digital divide through low cost internet, computers, and digital literacy skills training.  In June, 2020, Connecting For Good became a wholly-owned subsidiary of PCs for People, a national non-profit certified in e-waste recycling and the refurbishing and distribution of affordable computers and home internet solutions for low-income households throughout the U.S.  Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, PCs for People has more than doubled in size, processing over 65,000 computers, with operations in 8 different U.S. cities.   Recently licensed by the FCC as an approved Internet Service Provider (ISP), PCs for People is projecting even greater growth through its new Fixed Wireless and Wired Internet expansion program, using new technologies and agreements with both private and government-sponsored fiber providers to offer fast, high quality home internet at deeply discounted rates.  

Tom has a Masters of Marketing degree from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.  His wife Mary, also a Georgetown graduate, runs one of Kansas City’s largest non-profit early childhood learning centers, Operation Breakthrough.  Tom and Mary have 4 adult children and five grandchildren; and are both passionate Kansas City Royals and Chiefs fans. 

Panelist: Stacy Wedlake, Research Scientist, Technology and Social Change Group, University of Washington  

Stacey Wedlake is a Research Scientist with the Technology & Social Change Group at the University of Washington Information School. Her research focuses on how community organizations and public libraries address digital inequalities created by unjust economic, political, and social systems. She has a particular interest in community-centered approaches to technology access and digital literacy training with attention to how policy and funding influence these efforts. Before coming to the UW, she taught beginning computer skills as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia and then to unemployed workers in the wake of the Great Recession. When not working, you can find her chasing after her two small children around Seattle parks. She holds degrees in Public Administration (MPA) and Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of Washington.   

Moderator: Gloria Ayee, Lecturer, Harvard University  

Gloria Ayee is a political scientist with expertise in behavior and identity politics, and race and ethnic politics. She is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University, and a faculty associate at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research interests center on American politics, comparative politics, human rights, transitional justice, truth and reconciliation commissions, race and civil rights policy, political reconciliation, media policy and politics, politics and popular culture, and immigrant political incorporation. Ayee is the co-editor (along with Elena V. Shabliy and Dmitry V. Kurochkin) of Global Perspectives on Women’s Leadership and Gender (In)Equality (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) and Women’s Human Rights in Nineteenth Century Literature and Culture (2020, Lexington Books).   

Panelist: Apryl Williams, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan 

Dr. Apryl Williams received her PhD in Sociology from Texas A&M University. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication & Media and the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and an Affiliated Researcher at New York University’s Center for Critical Race + Digital Studies. Her research follows two broad streams of inquiry: critical algorithm studies and cultural studies of race, gender, popular culture and identity in digital spaces. Her work can be found in several peer reviewed outlets including the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Social Media + Society, Social Sciences, the International Journal of Communication, and Information, Communication & Society. Her work has also been featured in popular press outlets such as Time Magazine, Slate, The Guardian and NPR's On the Media. Williams also serves as Series Associate Editor of Emerald Studies in Media and Communications where she has co-edited five volumes on digital sociology, global media flows, and digital media cultures. 

Panelist: Meredith Schnug, Clinical Associate Professor, University of Kansas 

Meredith Schnug serves as a clinical associate professor and associate director of the Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Kansas School of Law. The clinic provides students an opportunity to develop their lawyering skills while promoting access to justice and providing high-quality legal services to low-income clients.  The clinic represents individuals in misdemeanor criminal, juvenile offender, expungement, and gender marker and name change cases.  Outside of the clinic, Schnug teaches Juvenile Law and Advanced Litigation, coordinates the law school's pro bono program, and assists with coaching the mock trial team. Prior to joining the faculty, Schnug served as a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio, where she represented victims of domestic violence in family law and immigration matters, and advocated for children in abuse, neglect and dependency cases. Schnug received her law degree from the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. 

Panelist: Jason Glenn, Associate Professor, University of Kansas  

Dr. Jason E. Glenn’s areas of research specialty include health inequities, mass incarceration, the history of drug policy in the U.S., and the ethics and history of human subject research.  He is currently an associate professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine and a Research Education and Training co-coordinator as part of the University of Kansas Medical Center’s Research Institute.  He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1996, and his M.A. and his Ph.D. in the history of science and medicine from Harvard University in 2001 and 2005, respectively.  He spent 12 years at UTMB as the James Wade Rockwell Distinguished Professor in Medical History within the Institute for the Medical Humanities; 8 of those years as the ethics and prisoner representative on the university’s IRB and 5 years as a co-investigator on the Ethics Core of UTMB’s CTSA grant.  While in Galveston Dr. Glenn was also a member of the Center for Addiction Research and a Senior Fellow at the Center to Eliminate Health Disparities.  Dr. Glenn is also a founder and past director of Sobriety High, Inc., a nonprofit organization providing community re-entry services for persons with a history of substance abuse who are returning to Galveston from prison.  As director of Sobriety High, Dr. Glenn is also a co-founder of the Galveston County Restorative Justice Community Partnership and the Galveston County Hope Drug Court.  His current research investigates abusive policing practices as a structural determinant of ill health in so affected communities.  

Panelist: Baek-Young Choi, Associate Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City 

Baek-young Choi is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, and leads the research activities at UMKC. Choi has been involved in several initiatives in promoting STEM education among women and underserved groups, and for the NSF project, co-leads the development of web and mobile applications for technology education sessions. 

Panelist: Panelist: Megha Ramaswamy, Professor, University of Kansas 

Megha Ramaswamy is an associate professor of preventive medicine & public health at the University of Kansas. Her research addresses the social context for sexual and reproductive health risk among women leaving jail, and she has worked with women in transition for 15 years. For the NSF project, Ramaswamy offers workshops on e-health for program participants, co-leads efforts on recruiting and retaining program participants and co-leads research that analyzes the effects of different educational modalities on program participants’ learning outcomes.  

Panelist: Hannah Britton, Professor, University of Kansas 

Hannah Britton is an associate professor in the departments of political science and women, gender, and sexuality studies. Britton's scholarship focuses on women and politics, gender and African politics, the prevention of gender-based violence, and human trafficking. Britton is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Injustice at the Institute of Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas. In this role, she coordinates KU's Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Initiative (ASHTI), which is a working group of faculty and students engaged in teaching and research about slavery, labor exploitation, and commercial sexual exploitation. She is the lead researcher on a project in the Midwest examining the factors that may leave someone vulnerable to exploitation. Hannah also coordinates a working group of faculty and graduate students using qualitative research methods in their teaching and scholarship.