Experts in Digital Rights and Advocacy

Minna Aslama Horowitz is the head of the RIPE@GLOBAL project that aims to connect academic and applied researcher-experts of public service media around the world. The project was launched by RIPE, an international initiative for the development of public service in media (established 2000 in Finland), which has grown into an influential global network of academic researchers and strategic managers with expertise in every relevant dimension of public service media. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Helsinki and has taken part in several international research activities in the past decade, including comparative work based on the Open Society Foundation‘s global Mapping Digital Media project (2009-13). From 2010-11 she served as a Policy Fellow at the New America Foundation, Washington, DC, and 2008-2009 as the Program Officer for the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere of the Social Science Research Council, New York. Her recent research includes conceptualizing participation in the web 2.0 era, public service media and content diversity, and media policy flows in the globalizing media environment.

Cameran Ashraf is assistant professor at the CEU School of Public Policy, and a human rights activist, social entrepreneur, and geographer. His research is focused on the current and historical relationship between space, technology, and the state as well as the broader psycho-political and psycho-social impacts of technology. In 2009 he assembled a team providing digital security and Internet filter circumvention to high-value activists, journalists, and individuals in closed societies - facilitating freedom of information for millions of people around the world. Cameran and his team defended critical websites from state-sponsored attacks, provided personal communications security for hundreds of vulnerable activists and journalists, distributed proxy servers used by over 40,000 people daily, and enabled more than 3 million video downloads from behind the firewall. His work led Cameran to co-found AccessNow, an international human rights organization dedicated to defending and extending the digital rights of users at risk around the world. In recognition of his work, the European Parliament selected AccessNow as a finalist for the 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe's highest human rights honor.

Kate Coyer is director of the Civil Society and Technology Project for CMDS. Her research examines the complexities of media practice and policy; digital rights advocacy and the social uses of technologies; media development and communication for social change; the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies as well as the resilience of ‘old’ mediums like radio. Kate holds a PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London and held a post doctoral research fellowship with the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania where she is also an affiliate. She has taught master and undergraduate level courses at CEU, Goldsmiths and University of Pennsylvania. Currently, Kate leads CMDS’ research project Virtual Center of Excellence for Research in Violent Online Political Extremism (VOX-Pol), a five year project supported by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme Network lead by Dublin City University.

Tarik Jusic is executive director and head of the public communication program at the Center for Social Research Analitika (www.analitika.ba). He holds a doctoral degree from the Institute for Media and Communication Studies, University of Vienna, Austria, and an MA degree in Political Science from Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. Previously, he has worked as assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, has been guest lecturer at the European Regional Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democracy in South East Europe (ERMA) of the Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies at the University of, where he taught parts of the course on research methods. He has worked as a researcher, program director and program adviser at Mediacentar Sarajevo (www.media.ba) from July 2002 until November 2011. Tarik has published a number of academic and professional papers and has edited several books dealing with the development of media in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region of Southeast Europe.

Djordje Krivokapic is the legal and policy director of SHARE Foundation and an associate lecturer at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, where he teaches courses on business law and IT law. His primary fields of interest are the intersection of law and technology and the impact of emerging information technologies on society. From 2010 to 2012, he cooperated with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University as a visiting researcher and a member of the working group on children’s digital safety in developing nations. Djordje also provides expert advice in corporate, telecommunications, intellectual property and ICT law to numerous start-ups, IT companies and artist hubs in Serbia, as well as state institutions.

Sejal Parmar is assistant professor of law at the Department of Legal Studies and a core faculty member of CMDS. She is currently on leave from CEU while serving as Senior Adviser to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media. Her main field of expertise and research is international and European human rights law, particularly on freedom of expression. She is researching and writing a monograph entitled Freedom of Expression Under Pressure which looks at the significance of the UN human rights bodies’ approaches to the most pressing contemporary sources of pressure on freedom of expression. This monograph builds on her previous publications and her experience of international advocacy, practice and policy advice in the field of freedom of expression. Parmar has published on a range of other human rights issues. She is an associate editor of the International Journal of Human Rights and represents CEU's Department of Legal Studies at the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI). Alongside her academic work, she regularly acts as an expert for intergovernmental organisations, including the Council of Europe, and has been appointed to the Academic Advisory Board of the Community of Democracies.

For the full list of experts, including the Center’s team, resident and non-resident fellows and partners, see CMDS Team.
For more information on our consultancy services, please contact Marius Dragomir, our center’s director.