Rory Powell

Rory Powell (she/her) 

Rory’s work centers on the intersection of technology, policy, and society. She recognizes that we are in an era of unprecedented computational expansion, where the speed of AI development has fundamentally outrun the pace of regulatory and security oversight. Rory is committed to closing this gap by advocating for frameworks that protect civil liberties without stifling the potential for progress.

At UC Berkeley, Rory double majored in Cognitive Science and Legal Studies with a minor in Data Science. These diverse disciplines fostered an interest in policy that upholds civil liberties and privacy rights amidst the expansion of social media platforms and the emergence of AI. Her coursework in computing and data science developed her  understanding of how these new and emerging technologies can serve as powerful tools for change. Meanwhile, her Legal Studies curricula sparked a strong commitment to the ethical implementation of these rapidly evolving technologies. This interdisciplinary line of study culminated with her Legal Studies honors thesis, which examines how online privacy policies and cookie agreements use a pseudo-legal authority to shape public understanding of online privacy rights 

Outside of her studies, Rory promoted ethical data collection and manipulation practices through various teaching roles on campus. As an undergraduate student instructor (uGSI) on the course-staff for Data 8, Berkeley’s introductory Data Science course, she taught introductory coding skills in python for data manipulation and statistical analysis. Furthermore, she designed and led a DeCal teaching students how to employ various coding methods in R to design honest and meaningful graphic representations of their data. Rory was also a caseworker in the Student Legal Clinic and Director of Technology. In this role, she developed methods for collecting and analyzing case data in order to strengthen the clinic’s outreach methods and deepen its overall ties to the Berkeley community. 

In addition to her work at UC Berkeley, Rory served as a student coder for the Northern California ACLU to conduct an in-depth examination of court documents and media accounts in support of a challenge to the death penalty under the California Racial Justice Act on behalf of a capital defendant. As part of Berkeley’s Cal in the Capital Program, she interned with Assistant Secretary Fayrouz Saad at The Department of Homeland Security under the Biden-Harris administration. In this role, she worked with the Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence to engage leaders across the private and public sectors facilitating discussions regarding practical solutions for assessing risks involved in AI. After her internship, she worked at the Impact Fund, a public interest litigation non-profit in Berkeley, where she reviewed social justice related class-action grant applications. She also researched consumer protection issues in social media platform design and wrote for the Impact Fund’s Social Justice blog on ongoing litigation against Meta and TikTok related to social media addiction.

Rory is thrilled to be selected as a John Gardner fellow. She hopes to work in a government office or non-profit dedicated to promoting the trustworthy integration of new technology and seeks accountability for protecting the civil liberties and privacy rights of individuals online.