The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public is seeking nominations for an award program that will recognize an individual or organization that has made outstanding contributions, achievements, or bodies of work that significantly resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse.
The CIP Award for Impact & Excellence, which highlights those making a positive impact in mitigating the challenges of mis- and disinformation, will come with a $5,000 award for the winner. The recipient of the award will receive a commemorative plaque and is invited to visit the center and give a talk on their work. The award will recognize work in one or more of four categories: research, education, engagement, or law and policy.
A multidisciplinary selection committee, which will review and evaluate all nominations, consists of leaders in the mis- and disinformation field, including one member of the CIP Faculty.
The 2023 selection committee consists of:
- Camille François, Columbia University School of Internet & Public Affairs lecturer
- Charley Johnson, Program Director, Public Tech Leadership Collaborative at Data & Society
- Steven Livingston, George Washington University professor of media and public affairs and Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics founding director
- Shannon McGregor, UNC Hussman School of Journalism & Media assistant professor and UNC Center for Information, Technology & Public Life senior researcher
- Jonathan Corpus Ong, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2022-2024)
- Jevin D. West, UW Information School associate professor and Center for an Informed Public co-founder
- Brandy Zadrozny, NBC News investigative reporter
Scroll down to learn more about the selection committee’s members.
Nominations are due on Sunday, March 26 by 11:59 p.m. (Pacific). For more information about the CIP Award for Excellence, criteria, selection process and eligibility, click here.
The CIP is grateful to the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for their foundational support for the Center for an Informed Public’s work and research, which has made this award possible.
Camille François
Lecturer, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs
Camille François works on the impacts of technology on society, with an emphasis on cyber conflict and information operations and currently serves as the global director of trust and safety at Niantic and is a lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She was previously the chief innovation officer at Graphika where she oversaw its investigation, analyses and R&D teams and led the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment. François was previously a principal researcher at Google, in the “Jigsaw” team, an innovation unit that builds technology to address global security challenges and protect vulnerable users. François has advised governments and parliamentary committees on both sides of the Atlantic, investigated Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of the U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee, and served as a special advisor to the chief technology officer of France. François is an affiliate scholar of the Harvard Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, a Fulbright scholar and a Mozilla Fellow. She holds a masters degree in human rights from the French Institute of Political Sciences (Sciences-Po) and a masters degree in international security from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.
Charley Johnson
Program Director, Public Tech Leadership Collaborative
Data & Society
Charley Johnson leads the Public Tech Leadership Collaborative at Data & Society. Previously, he led the organization’s Disinformation Action Lab, which was awarded the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public inaugural “Award for Impact & Excellence” for its work on the 2020 U.S. Census. Previously, Johnson co-founded and ultimately led the Center for Digital Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He’s an adjunct professor at George Washington University, a graduate of the University of Washington and the Harvard Kennedy School, and he founded Untangled, a newsletter and podcast on technology, people, and power. Most importantly, he’s an obnoxiously proud uncle.
Steven Livingston
Founding Director, Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics
Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University
Steven Livingston is the founding director of The George Washington University Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics (IDDP), a professor of media and public affairs, and a non-resident senior fellow in the Illiberal Studies Program and GWU’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. In 2019, he led GW’s successful bid for a $5 million grant to found IDDP. He served as the director of the Political Communication Program when it was a degree-granting entity within the School of Media and Public Affairs (1996 – 2002, 2004 – 2006). In 2004, he served as acting director of SMPA, a position held until August 2006. He also founded the Public Diplomacy Institute (PDI) at GW in 2000 and served as the chairman of the Board of Directors until 2008. PDI is now the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. Livingston’s research and teaching focus on media/information technology and political theory. He is particularly interested in the role of information technologies and media on governance, development, accountability and human rights. In recent years, he has been a visiting senior research fellow at the Free University of Berlin; Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand; a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in governance; a visiting professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland; and a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In the fall of 2016, Livingston was appointed a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University where he served through summer 2019.
Shannon McGregor
Assistant Professor, UNC Hussman College of Journalism & Media
Senior Researcher, UNC Center for Information, Technology & Public Life
Shannon C. McGregor (PhD, University of Texas – Austin) is an assistant professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina, and a senior researcher with UNC’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. She is an award winning and internationally recognized communication scholar whose research addresses the role of social media in political processes. In particular, she examines how social media shapes political communication, journalism, public opinion, and epistemologies of public life in democracies.
Jonathan Corpus Ong
Associate Professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst
Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2022-2024)
Jonathan Corpus Ong (PhD, Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Global Digital Media at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2020-2023, he is also Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center. He was recently selected as one of 28 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Awardees (2022-2024). Ong has published 3 books and over 25 journal articles in his research areas of global media ethics, digital politics, and the anthropology of humanitarianism. In his disinformation studies research, Jonathan uses ethnography to understand the social identities, work arrangements and moral justifications of “paid trolls” and political public relations strategists. He is co-host of a “disinformation whistleblowers podcast” Catch Me If You Can, now in its second season, and ranked in global Top 5% Most Followed Podcasts by Spotify in 2022.
Jevin D. West
Inaugural Director, Center for an Informed Public
Associate Professor, University of Washington Information School
Jevin D. West is an associate professor at the University of Washington’s Information School and the inaugural director of the Center for an Informed Public. He is a co-founder of the DataLab, the nexus for research on data science and analytics. West develops data mining techniques for studying the Science of Science, where he investigates the origins of scholarly disciplines, the social and economic biases that drive these disciplines, and the impact of the current publication system. Currently, his research focuses on misinformation specifically in and about science.
Brandy Zadrozny
Senior Reporter, NBC News
Brandy Zadrozny is an award-winning investigative and features reporter for NBC News where she covers misinformation, extremism, and the internet. She spent 2020 tracking misinformation around COVID-19 and reporting on the disinformation campaign around the election that culminated in a siege on the U.S. Capitol. Previously, Zadrozny was at The Daily Beast where she covered politics and the internet as a senior reporter. She has an MLIS and in a former life, worked as a librarian and instructor in news, college, and public libraries.
