Facebook: Integrating Research into Real-World Policy

Elaine Sedenberg leads global research and academic engagement for Facebook’s Privacy and Data Policy team. She has a Ph.D. from the Berkeley School of Information, where she completed her dissertation “Information-intensive innovation: the changing role of the private firm in the research ecosystem through the study of biosensed data.” Elaine’s research challenges the theory of linear innovation, and explores how research strategy, practice, and data policies intersect within a modern information firm. She is a 2018–2021 Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Elaine previously served as the co-director of the Center for Technology, Society & Policy (CTSP) from 2016 to 2018. Her prior research broadly studied private sector data collection and information sharing for public good uses — particularly research applications. Other past research projects include policy analyses and recommendations for the responsible information access through government open data programs, privacy and ethical implications from the collection and sharing of "biosensed" data, and a study of the cybersecurity information sharing ecosystem. Elaine has also written about mechanisms for enabling responsible information exchanges by reclaiming the meaning and use of informed consent in modern data-gathering, digital contexts.

Elaine was awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2013. She also holds a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin where she graduated with highest honors and a Dean’s Honored Graduate distinction. Outside of work, Elaine enjoys putting her chemistry training to work in the kitchen, light painting with her Nikon, visiting friends scattered across the country, and letting everyone know she is a proud Texan. She volunteers with the Junior League of Washington