UC Berkeley Tech Policy Fellows

Sponsored by the CITRIS Policy Lab and the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

2024-2025 FELLOWS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN AUGUST.

The UC Berkeley Tech Policy Fellows program offers scholars and practitioners the opportunity to spend the 2024-2025 academic year as a non-residential fellow at UC Berkeley to conduct research; share expertise and experiences with faculty, staff, and students; and develop technical or policy interventions that support responsible technology development and use. 

Fellows will have the opportunity to collaborate with each other; to engage with faculty, staff, and students; and to contribute in meaningful ways to the UC Berkeley academic community.

We seek to attract a diverse cohort of fellows from different backgrounds, disciplines, and sectors (e.g., industry, journalism, government, civil society, academia) who would like to pursue a project that focuses on technical and/or policy strategies in one or more of the following thematic areas:

• • Responsible development and use of artificial intelligence in the public and private sectors
  • Effective content moderation at scale
  • Prosocial recommender systems
  • Mitigating and/or effectively countering harmful mis- and disinformation
  • Responsible platform data scraping
  • Blockchain in the public sector (e.g., health, government services)
  • Relationship between EU policy strategies (e.g., Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, Data Governance Act, and EU AI Act) and US policy strategies (e.g., Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, National AI Initiative Act)
  • And other proposed topics related to responsible technology and policy

Program Details

Fellowships are from the 2024-2025 academic year and will be primarily non-residential, although local participants are welcome to attend and participate in on-campus events, meetings, and other activities. At this time, fellows should not expect to receive financial remuneration.

Students currently enrolled at any academic institution are ineligible to apply. 

Fellows will receive:

• • A UC Berkeley email address and Google workspace account
  • Access to a mentorship network and research support
  • Opportunities to share and receive feedback on current research and works in progress
  • Opportunities to engage and collaborate with faculty, staff, and students on research and/or practical interventions related to responsible technology development and governance
  • Opportunities to engage with UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students and serve as an advisor, mentor, or collaborator.
  • Opportunities to help organize and host tech policy-related events and convenings
  • Access to a wide range of conferences, symposia, and other events hosted by UC Berkeley
  • Access to workshops and other professional development opportunities
  • Tailored workshop on writing an effective policy memo or op-ed based on their research
  • Support in submitting an opinion piece to mainstream news outlets or relevant blogs
  • Opportunities to present their work and share expertise in public seminars and in undergraduate and graduate courses

Fellows are expected to:

• • Participate actively in biweekly Zoom meetings
  • Share their research and give feedback to other Tech Policy Fellows
  • Attend an in-person kick off meeting in the Fall and the in-person Tech Policy Summit meeting in Spring
  • Publish a research article or white paper on the CITRIS Policy Lab website and on relevant partnering organizations’ websites
  • Be willing to engage with faculty, students, donors, and the general public as a UC Berkeley Tech Policy Fellow

Application Process

Applications are now closed. Fellows will be announced in July.

Your submission must include a project proposal (more details below), CV/resume, and a relevant writing sample.

Project Proposal

Max 2 pages. Project proposal should include:

Questions

For more information, contact tech-policy@berkeley.edu

The Tech Policy Fellows Program is part of UC Berkeley’s Tech Policy Initiative, a collaboration between the Goldman School of Public Policy and the CITRIS Policy Lab. The Tech Policy Initiative aims to strengthen multidisciplinary scholarly collaborations, foster tech policy education, and innovation, and inform effective tech-related policy strategies across the public and private sectors.