Co-Director of Center for Information Policy Research

I’m thrilled to announce (a bit late) that I have been appointed co-director of UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Information Policy Research (along with my colleague Dr. Joyce Latham).

(We are picking up the reins from our friend Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan, who is now the Endowed Chair and Director at the Center for Applied Ethics, University of Wisconsin-Stout.)

One of our first acts as directors was to update CIPR’s website and tweak (only slightly) its mission:

The Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR) is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s multidisciplinary research center for the study of the intersections between the policy, ethical, political, social and legal aspects of the global information society. CIPR‘s research and scholarship focuses on such key information policy issues as intellectual property, privacy, intellectual freedom, access to information, censorship, cyberlaw, and the complex array of government, corporate, and global information practices and policies.

With information infrastructures and technologies and the globalization of information evolving at a faster pace than our social, legal, and educational systems, it is imperative that information policy issues be examined systematically in an interdisciplinary environment. Established in 1998 within the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee School of Information Studies (SOIS), CIPR facilitates information policy research through its research agenda, lecture series, consulting and outreach activities, and its various fellows programs.

CIPR welcomes formal and informal collaborations with other scholars, institutions and agencies interested in information ethics, law, or policy. CIPR personnel are available for consultations, advisement, presentations, and related educational and outreach opportunities.

Already this year, CIPR has partnered with UW-M’s Center for 21st Century Studies for the successful “Minding the Gaps: WikiLeaks and Internet Security in the 21st Century” symposium, which featured Laura DeNardis (Yale Information Society Project), and UWM faculty Sandra Braman (Communication) and Richard Grusin (C21, English). And, Joyce and I have represented CIPR at a discussion on “Intellectual Freedom vs. WikiLeaks” at the Brookfield Public Library.

For interested PhD students, we’ve organized an informal reading group on “Information & Power”, led by CIPR Faculty Fellow Sandra Braman.

Stay tuned for announcements of future events and appearances. Follow CIPR on Twitter, and find us on Facebook.