Dr. Nina Shengelia is a lecturer at Tbilisi State University and Caucasus Internation-al University. In July 2021 she was a visiting researcher at HIIG in the framework of DAAD Scholarship of Research Grants for PHD students. Name of her PHD dissertation is “Online Content Moderation and Human Rights”.
Nina’s research is concerned with digital constitutionalism, regulation, co-regulation and self-regulation of social media platforms, digital rights, human rights, social media councils, platform governance, intermediary liability as well as impact of social media and human rights on fragile democracies.
Nina studied law at King’s College London and has completed a Master’s Degree at BPP University in the framework of her scholarship from a leading London based law firm, Herbert Smith Freehills. Nina worked as a lecturer of law at Georgian Institute of Public Affairs at the Department of Law and Politics between 2016 and 2019. She has been working as a lecturer of Media Law at Tbilisi State University at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication Studies since 2020. Since 2019 Nina is a member of “Digital Constitutionalism Discussion Group” at HIIG. Nina is also heading a non-governmental organization Digital Democracy Center in Georgia and is a former fellow at Sector 3 where her work focused on Media Literacy, Disinformation and Regulation Policy Review
On behalf of Digital Democracy Center and Sector 3, Nina organized a Roundtable discussion on ‘Legal Aspects of Content Management on Social Media, Disinformation and Media Literacy’ in 2020. Nina alongside former HIIG fellow and professor Edoardo Celeste is also a co-organizer of a scientific conference “Human Rights in the Digital Age Regulating Online Disinformation: European Perspectives” Additionally, Nina has worked for the Georgian Media Regulator, Communications Commission and leading law firms in London, Herbert Smith Freehills and Stephenson Harwood.
Dr. Sergi Jorbenadze is an associate professor at Tbilisi State University. Dr. Jorbenadze is the author of several books including „Placement of advertisement on the TV broadcaster” (2013), Media Law (2014, Co-authorship), Freedom of Contract in Civil Law (2017), Social Media Law (2019), Fundamentals of insolvency proceedings, on Rehabilitation and Collective Satisfaction of Lenders, according to the Law of Georgia” (2021, Co-authorship). In addition, he has published articles in journals, such as: „Wirtschaft und Recht in Osteuropa“ (WiRO, Verlag C.H. Beck, München), „Zeitschrift für Datenschutz“ (ZD, Verlag C.H. Beck, München), „Zeitrschrift für Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht“ (IWRZ, Verlag C.H. Beck, München), „Internationales Steuerrecht“ (iStR, Verlag C.H. Beck, München), „Osteuropa-Recht“ (OER, Verlag Nomos).
Dr. Jorbenadze is also a practicing Lawyer and has been carrying out practical activities for more than 10 years. He is a managing partner of the law firm JG Counselors. He is involved not only in media law cases but also in business law cases and actively represents clients in courts
In 2016, Sergi Jorbenadze defended his dissertation. He is also a Master of Law at the University of Bremen. Since 2015, he has been an arbitrator in private arbitration. He has participated in numerous international conferences and Events. Since 2012, he has been actively training lawyers, as well as representatives of various professions in practice.
Sergi Jorbenadze is an expert of the Council of Europe in the field of justice reform. He speaks German (fluently) and English (good) languages.
Dr Ushangi Bakhtadze is the Professor of Criminology at Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University and Head of the Center for Crime and Criminal Justice. In 2020 he defended his dissertation on the topic - “Criminological Analysis of the Criminalization.” He is also a Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Oxford.
Since 2009 he has been a member of the Georgian Bar Association and is a founding partner of the law firm Jorbenadze & Gatserelia Counsellors. Since 2013 he has been a lecturer in criminology and criminal law. Main areas of his research are: crime, causes of crime, crime prevention and control, crime and the media.
In the letter field, Dr Bakhtadze has co-authored the handbook on media law, where chapters on Crime and the Media is elaborated by him. He is also the only person in Georgia who has developed Crime and Media course for MA level students and teaches it since 2017.
Dennis is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen (ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research). His research focus is on the global governance of the Internet, platforms, AI and quantum technology. He is also a founding member of the interdisciplinary Digital Constitutionalism Network (since 2019), which deals with the role of human rights in the digital age and the increasing constitutionalization of digital technologies. In 2015, Dennis was an intern at BKC and he was an BKC Affiliate in the 2015/2016 academic year. Between 2017 and 2021, Dennis worked as a junior researcher at the University of Bremen and a doctoral candidate at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). During his doctoral research, Dennis completed research stays at New York University (Center for European and Mediterranean Studies) and again at BKC. He defended his dissertation with the title “Digital Constitutionalism: Transnational Advocacy Networks and the Struggle for Human Rights in the Digital Age” in March 2021. Dennis previously studied international relations, comparative law, political philosophy and economics in Maastricht, Bremen and at the University of Connecticut.
Since obtaining a PhD, Dennis has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in Bochum and an AI teaching fellow of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (AI Campus), an affiliated postdoc at, a Fellow at the Information Society Law Center at the University of Milan (Statale), a Young Academic Fellow at the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, and a Visiting Professor at the Center for Technology and Society (CTS) at FGV Direito Rio (Rio de Janeiro).
In teaching, Dennis focuses on research-based teaching, problem-based learning (PBL), and transnational teaching partnerships. Together with instructors from other countries in Europe, he organizes the “Digital Constitutionalism Teaching Partnership”.
To carry out his research, Dennis has received grants and scholarships from the Foundation of German Industry (sdw), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), the European Commission (Horizon Europe), the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, the Central Research DevelopDr. DENNIS REDEKER Member of International Advisory Board 22 ment Fund (CRDF) of the University of Bremen, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), the Data Science Center (DSC) at the University of Bremen, the State of Bremen, the Young European Research Universities Network (YERUN), and Facebook Research. Outside of academia, Dennis serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (2022-2024). He is actively involved in European and global digital governance institutions and exchanges, including at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) and at UNESCO.
Dr. Pierre François Docquir is a researcher and expert in the fields of human rights law and internet and media law and regulation. He is the head of the Media Freedom Programme at ARTICLE 19 after joining the organization in 2015 as the senior legal officer. He previously served as vice-president of the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel in Belgium and was a researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where he obtained his Ph.D. in law in 2009.
Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard) is head of the research programme “Regulatory Structures and the Emergence of Rules in Online Spaces” at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut. His team investigates the rules under which new forms and practices of social understanding and self-assurance emerge in digital communication spaces, and especially in social networks. After studying law in Graz, Geneva and as a Fulbright and Boas scholar at Harvard School, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on the legal status of the individual in international law. In 2014, he was called to the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt as a postdoctoral researcher, where he habilitated with Prof. Kadelbach and Prof. Vesting at the Institute for Public Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. His thesis was on the normative order of the internet and he was awarded the authorisation to teach international law, internet law and legal theory. After substitutions in Heidelberg and Jena, he followed the call to the professorship for innovation, theory and philosophy of law at the Institute for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck in autumn 2021.
In addition to his work at the HBI, Matthias C. Kettemann is a research group leader for “Global Constitutionalism and the Internet” and head of the research project “The Public International Law of the Internet” at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin. He is also the head of section of “International Law and the Internet” at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and a member of the board of directors and research group leader for “Platform and Content Governance” at the Sustainable Computing Lab, Vienna.
Brent joined Netsafe as the CEO in early May 2022.
Brent has broad and extensive experience in regulatory, privacy, safety and response environments. Along with a good understanding of both local and global online industries and a commitment to community safety. He has previously held senior positions at the Australian Telecommunications Ombudsman and the Victorian Department of Justice. As New Zealand’s previous Domain Name Commissioner, Brent has promoted and advocated for fairness in the .nz domain name market and led responses to domain name abuse. Brent brings strong stakeholder management experience and technical awareness to the role of Netsafe CEO and is a member of several international bodies, including the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution and the crisis response working group of the Global Internet Forum to Counter-Terrorism. Locally, his memberships include the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute, the Institute of Company Directors and Te Āti Awa iwi. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of Rainbow Wellington and a founder of Taranaki-based, Green Meadows Beef.
Dr. Heidi Tworek is a Canada Research Chair and associate professor of international history and public policy at UBC. She directs the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Her work examines history and policy around communications, particularly the effects of new media technologies on democracy. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation as well as a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She co-edits the Journal of Global History. Heidi’s interest in democracy was spurred by writing her prize-winning book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945 (Harvard University Press, 2019). Alongside co-editing four volumes, Heidi has published or has forthcoming over 45 book chapters and journal articles on media and communications, global history, the history of technology, legal history, digital history, and health. She is currently working on several projects, including global platform governance, the history and policy of health communications, and an edited volume on the interwar world. Her research has been supported by the Canada Research Chair program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Genome Canada, the United Nations Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and Harvard University. Alongside writing policy reports on topics including Covid-19 communications and online harassment, Heidi has briefed or advised officials and policymakers from governments around the world on media, democracy, and the digital economy. Her writing has been published and featured in major magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, The Globe & Mail, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Financial Times, CNN, and many others. She writes a monthly column for the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
She received her BA (Hons) in Modern and Medieval Languages with a double first from Cambridge University and earned her MA and PhD in History from Harvard University. Heidi has held visiting fellowships at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC, Birkbeck, University of London, and the Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Professor Mailyn Fidler joined the faculty in August 2022, where she is affiliated with the Nebraska Governance & Technology Center. Professor Fidler received her B.A. with Honors in Science, Technology, and Society from Stanford University and her MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar. After completing a fellowship at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, she received her JD from Yale Law School, where she was a student director for an impact litigation clinic. After law school, she continued her work in impact litigation as the Technology and First Amendment Fellow with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She also clerked for The Honorable Robert Bacharach on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor Fidler’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of criminal law, technology, and speech. She is an expert on the Fourth Amendment and changing technology. In broader criminal law, she writes about often overlooked aspects of criminal proceedings, including jury nullification, sentence mitigation, and allocution. Her work also analyzes ways that criminalization intersects with regulation of speech, including on the Internet. She is also an expert on international cybersecurity and cybercrime regulations, with a particular focus on Africa. Outside of criminal law, she also studies the way that legal regimes governing intellectual property, speech, and secrecy intersect. At Nebraska, she teaches criminal law and procedure, cybersecurity, and copyright.
Giovanni De Gregorio is the PLMJ Chair in Law and Technology at Católica Global School of Law and Católica Lisbon School of Law. He is also a member of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law. His research interest deals with constitutional law, human rights, freedom of expression, privacy and data protection law. Giovanni is the author of the monograph Digital Constitutionalism in Europe. Reframing Rights and Powers in the Algorithmic Society (Cambridge University Press 2022). His research has been published in edited books and international journals, including the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Global Constitutionalism, Common Market Law Review, Computer Law and Security Review, European Journal of Legal Studies, International Journal of Communication. He edited two books with Hans W. Micklitz and others, Constitutional Challenges in the Algorithmic Society (Cambridge University Press 2021); and with Oreste Pollicino, Blockchain and Public Law: Global Challenges in the Era of Decentralisation (Edward Elgar 2021). He is also member of the editorial board of the law reviews MediaLaws, Diritti Comparati and Journal of Law, Market and Innovation. He is a reviewer for the International Journal of Constitutional Law; Computer Law and Security Law Review; European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance; Global Constitutionalism.
Prior to joining Católica, Giovanni was a postdoctoral researcher working with the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford. Within the framework of the ERC ConflictNet project, his research focuses on content moderation and artificial intelligence; hate speech and disinformation in conflicts; digital policy in the global south. He completed his PhD in Constitutional Law at the University of Milano-Bicocca. His doctoral study has investigated the rise of European digital constitutionalism as a reaction and strategy against the predominance of digital private normativities. By focusing on the intersection between European constitutionalism and technology with a transatlantic comparative perspective, the research describes the rise of digital private powers defining their standards of protection while competing with the normative order of European constitutional law. Part of this research has been awarded the Leonardo da Vinci Price issued by the Conference of Italian University Rectors for the best publication among Italian young scholars in legal studies in 2020.
Giovanni has also received important academic award including the ICON award 2022 for the best article published in the International Journal of Constitutional Law, the Common Market Law Review Award for the best research article in 2021 and the Euroconsumer award “My Data is Mine” for the best paper in 2021. During these years, Giovanni has been Academic Fellow at Bocconi University, Research Associate at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (Oxford), non-resident legal research for Columbia Global Freedom of Expression and visiting fellow at the Center for Cyber Law and Policy at the University of Haifa. He is also member of global academic and policy networks such as the Centre for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP); the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet), the Global Digitial Human Rights Network (GDHRNet); the Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibilities at the Internet Governance Forum; the IACL Research Group on “Algorithmic State, Society and Market – Constitutional Dimensions”; and the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network.
Iva Nenadic is an academic researcher and expert specializing in media policy and regulation, especially focusing on platform governance and transformations affecting journalism and information sphere. She is Assistant Professor in Journalism at the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb and Research Fellow at the European University Institute, affiliated with the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF). For the last decade she has been involved and coordinating some of the most prominent EU projects in the area of digital transformation of journalism, media freedom and pluralism, and platform governance. She is one of the coordinators in the EU-wide Media Pluralism Monitor project, and in the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), where she chairs an expert group on structural indicators for the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation. In 2021/2022 Iva was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, affiliated with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), studying algorithmic ranking and prominence policies in major online platforms. Iva holds a PhD in Communication Science. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a journalist and editor in various media.
Sherly is one of the few Internet governance researchers in Asia. She has been bridging the global and national (Indonesia) debates on Internet governance, online content governance, and personal data protection issues. She consults and conducts research projects and also actively engages with policymakers and larger communities. She earned her PhD in Communication Studies from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. During her PhD, she also had the opportunity to serve on the national multistakeholder organising committee of the United Nations - Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Bali, Indonesia in 2013 and on the Secretariat of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG). Some of her recent research projects: Content Moderation and Local Stakeholders in Indonesia (in collaboration with Article 19, Unesco, and the European Union); Indonesia’s chapter in the Freedom On The Net (FOTN) report 2019-2021; the comparison of Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Bill with Europe’s Convention 108+ and General Data Protection Regulation (in collaboration with Tifa Foundation).
Dr M.R. Leiser is an Assistant Professor at ALTI, the Amsterdam Law & Technology Institute, a former Research Fellow of the Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a Pluralist World research program, and thesis coordinator for the Technology Law Masters at VU-Amsterdam. He holds a BSc in Communications and Media Studies, an LLB (Hons) and a PhD from the University of Strathclyde. He is an International Research Scholar at the University of Milan; a visiting professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law. Dr Leiser’s expertise is in the regulation of the Internet, and his research interests include heuristics, platform regulation, the Metaverse, data protection, digital rights, consumer protection, and computational propaganda. His research focuses on implementing insights from cognitive and social psychology as well as behavioural economics into the regulation of the online environment. In practice, his work applies to protection from the dissemination of fake news and manipulative design (‘dark patterns’), the regulation of machine speech, platform regulation and fundamental rights and the GDPR and the AI Act.
Dr Farzaneh Badiei is the founder of Digital Medusa, an initiative that focuses on protecting the core values of our global digital space with sound governance. For over a decade, Farzaneh has directed and led projects about Internet and social media governance. She has also been a leader in building and engaging with diverse communities and stakeholders. She has undertaken research at Yale Law School, Georgia Institute of Technology and the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin. Farzaneh received her PhD in law from the University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics. Between 2011 and 2014, she worked at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum Secretariat.
Thomas Kent, a senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation, lectures on disinformation and Russian affairs at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. Previously, he served as Moscow bureau chief, international editor, and ethics editor for the Associated Press. Dr. Thomas Kent has written and spoken extensively on the geopolitics of information, propaganda, journalistic ethics and press freedom. He is the former president and CEO of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, a senior fellow of the Jamestown Foundation and a specialist in Russian affairs.
Dr Monica Horten is an independent policy advisor She is a published author and post-doctoral scholar with expertise in the field of online safety and human rights. Her published works include “The Closing of the Net” (Polity 2016) and other books on the politics of the Internet. She holds a PhD in communications policy from the University of Westminster, where she investigated legal changes around the enforcement of copyright on the Internet in the EU. From 2012-2020, she was a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. Her most recent paper outlines an investigation into Facebook shadow bans.
Monica served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee on Internet Freedoms. She worked on capacity building programmes funded by the Council of Europe, EU and UNDP, in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
She has presented at seminars in the Westminster and European Parliaments and has been cited in media ranging from the BBC, Guardian, Times, New York Times, Business Insider, and Deutsche Welle.
A journalist by training, she wrote on telecoms, Internet and computing for many years with bylines including The Daily Telegraph, and Financial Times.
Edoardo Celeste is an Assistant Professor in Law, Technology and Innovation at the School of Law and Government of Dublin City University. His research interests lie in the field of digital rights and constitutionalism, privacy and data protection law, online platforms governance and regulation, digital economics and ethics, legal philosophy and sociology, focusing in particular on issues related to artificial intelligence, social media, sharing economy, and blockchain. From 2016 to 2020, Edoardo was an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Scholar at the Sutherland School of Law of University College Dublin. His PhD thesis ‘Digital constitutionalism: The Role of Internet Bills of Rights’ examines how the digital revolution is changing contemporary constitutionalism, and explores the constitutional role of Internet bills of rights.
Edoardo previously studied law at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, at the University of Paris II ‘Panthéon-Assas’, and at King’s College London. He is an alumnus of the European Law School (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). In 2018, he was a research fellow at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) of Berlin. Edoardo is currently affiliated with the ADAPT Centre and the UCD Centre for Human Rights.
Adio Dinika is a doctoral researcher investigating the future of work and platform governance at the prestigious Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), and lecturer at the esteemed Constructor University. His PhD research provides an incisive critique of the techno-optimistic narratives surrounding platform labour in Sub-Saharan Africa through extensive fieldwork across Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Adio is also a research affiliate with the renowned Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR) Institute, conducting cutting-edge studies on the labour conditions of workers powering emergent AI systems.
In 2021, Adio was selected as a research fellow for the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) project "Digital Sovereignty - African Perspectives" under the patronage of the German Federal President. His research analysed digital infrastructure development in Africa and implications for digital sovereignty. Most recently in 2023, Adio was a visiting researcher at Weizenbaum Institute examining the working conditions of content moderators at major outsourcing firms.
Adio is a member of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Labor Tech Research Network, and the Digital Constitutionalism Network (DCN), contributing valued global south perspectives on digital sovereignty and platform governance. Throughout his research and activism portfolio, Adio is dedicated to furthering equitable, ethical technologies while staunchly advocating for the digital rights of people in relation to encroachment by both states and big tech companies.
