Besides the basics on my main page, here’s even more about me!
I am a ‘18 Schar School PhD in Public Policy, with a concentration on tech policy. I have studied emerging technologies (from nanotechnology to AI), focusing on governance structures, particularly multistakeholderism. Outside of my dissertation area, I have worked on a very wide range of tech policy issues from privacy and cyber security, to open data policy and big data ethics. I was a two-time Google Policy Fellow (once with the Internet Education Foundation, and the second with the Global Network Initiative), a research Fellow with the Future of Privacy Forum, and an ICANN58/ICANN61/ICANN64 Fellow. I am an Associate Researcher at the Big Data Science Lab at the West University of Timisoara (Romania) and at the Center for Advanced Studies in Public Policy, Governance at the Paraiba State University (Brazil), and was a Partner-Fellow with New America Public Interest Technology.
I was a 2012-2015 Presidential Fellow and PhD candidate at George Mason University’s Schar School Of Policy and Government, as well as 2017 Google Policy Fellow with the Global Network Initiative, an ICANN58 Fellow, an ICANN61 Fellow, & an ICANN64 Fellow, and a Curator with the Digital Watch Observatory. I research Science and Technology Policy, nationally and internationally and I focus on Internet policy and governance issues (ICANN, encryption, IGF, Safe Harbor Privacy Shield, biometrics, Open Government initiatives, privacy, business and human rights, Big Data and ethics, data localization, data science ethics, government hacking. EU data protection etc.) as well as novel forms of governance. I’m mostly (but not entirely) a qualitative or mixed-methods type of guy. My main assignment at GMU was to assist Dr. Anne L. Washington with her (really cool) research and teaching activities. I was previously a 2016 Google Policy Fellow with the Internet Education Foundation, a Research Fellow with Future of Privacy Forum and a teaching assistant to former Under Secretary of the Navy, Dr. Janine Davidson.
I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science (in English) from The College of Political Science at the University of Bucharest in 2008, and in 2010 I graduated from the Master of International Affairs Program (with a Science, Technology and Society graduate minor) at The Pennsylvania State University. Between August 2011 and May 2012, I was a student in the Mass Communications Doctorate at Penn State’s College of Communications. (As a side note, while there, starting in September 2011 I became Social Media Manager for Onward State, the largest Penn State student-centric blog platform.) I am a member of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, the American Political Science Association and the International Association of Privacy Professionals. I was selected as a 2016 Global Privacy Summit Scholar by IAPP. Having started my two-year appointment in January 2016, I was a Student Representative on APPAM’s Policy Council, thus building on my involvement from 2015, when I was the inaugural Chair of APPAM’s Student Advisory Committee. In August 2017, I was voted into the American Political Science Association’s Information Technology and Politics Section Executive Committee for a two year position. I was a finalist for the 2016 Mason Law and Economics Center’s prestigious Privacy Fellowship program.
I have volunteered at and assisted with numerous events and conferences, such as National Science Foundation workshops, professional conferences, or the 2015 Privacy and Security Forum, to name just a few. I have served on Program Committees for international conferences, and am a peer reviewer for the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review. For several years I was involved, at levels ranging from volunteer to Vice-Chair, with the premier graduate student-focused science and technology studies and policy conference, STGlobal. I have presented co-authored or single authored papers at US and international conferences. Over summer 2009, I Interned at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. Back in Romania, I worked for Inpolitics.ro and its predecessor epolitics.ro, and I would periodically write articles for the previous incarnations of Cotidianul and Academia Catavencu (just fyi, those links might not work, because Romanian webmasters don’t care about preserving legacy content) I’ve done other things, too. Don’t believe me? Here, read my CV. Just to prove to you that I’m human, I have hobbies too. Big-time photography fan (check my Instagram), avid social media early adopter (I’m probably already on that new app you just heard about), comedy enthusiast (and once and future performer as well) and avid pretender of enjoying sports.