FP Virtual Dialogue: Women, Peace & Security for the Digital Age

Kara Anne Swisher is an American journalist. Described by Newsweek as Silicon Valley's "most powerful tech journalist", she is an opinion writer for The New York Times, a contributing editor at New York, the host of the podcast Sway, and the co-host of the podcast Pivot.

Dr. Ajunwa is a tenured law professor at the UNC School of Law and an adjunct Associate Professor at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business where she is a Rethinc. lab Fellow. She is also the Founding Director of the Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making Research (AI-DR) Program at UNC Law. Professor Ajunwa is a 2021-2022 Fulbright Scholar, a 2019 recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, and a 2018 recipient of the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Association of American Law Schools. She has been a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University since 2017. She is also a certified Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion expert and consultant since 2020. Dr. Ajunwa’s research interests are at the intersection of law and technology and on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Dr. Ajunwa has published numerous law review and peer reviewed articles in top journals and her forthcoming book, “The Quantified Worker,”  will be published by Cambridge University Press. Her public essays have been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Nature, the Harvard Business Review, etc and she writes a column for Forbes. Dr. Ajunwa is a Founding Board Member of the Labor Tech Research Network which is an international group of scholars committed to the research of the ethics of AI used in the workplace and for labor and also serves on the tech ethics board of a Silicon Valley company. She has previously served as a Board member for the Institute for Africa Development and for the Cornell Prison Education Program.  

Camille François works on cyber conflict and digital rights online. She is the Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, where she leads the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment. Camille was previously the Principal Researcher at Jigsaw, an innovation unit at Google that builds technology to address global security challenges and protect vulnerable users. Camille has advised governments and parliamentary committees on both sides of the Atlantic on policy issues related to cybersecurity and digital rights. She served as a special advisor to the Chief Technology Officer of France in the Prime Minister’s office, working on France’s first Open Government roadmap. Camille is a Mozilla Fellow, a Berkman-Klein Center affiliate, and a Fulbright scholar. 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. François’ work has been featured in various publications, including the New York Times, WIRED, Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Globo and Le Monde.

Lisa Roman is Vice President for Public Policy at Bumble, where she focuses on strengthening rules and norms to support healthy and equitable relationships. Previously, she worked on public policy issues at Twitter, where she led engagement with industry, government, and civil society. Prior to tech policy, Ms. Roman worked in the field of  international peace and security, including at the UN, the White House, and the U.S. State Department. She is passionate about online safety, equality, and empowering women to make the first move in all aspects of their lives.

Moira Whelan has more than 20 years of experience at the forefront of international engagement and technology. Before joining NDI she was a founding partner in BlueDot Strategies, a consulting firm based in Washington, DC that specialized in assisting technology companies engage governments. She regularly engaged non-profits in training government and civil society leaders on using digital tools and developing strategies for integrating new technologies into practice for citizen engagement. Moira served as the U.S. State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Digital Strategy at the U.S. Department of State where spearheaded digital diplomacy efforts and counseled governments around the world in integrating digital tools into their outreach efforts. Prior to this, she served as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development where she oversaw the global communications team and integrated digital tools into development outreach. Before joining USAID, Moira worked at the Department of Homeland Security where she directed the National Joint Information Center and also served as Chief of Staff in the Office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding. Moira was a founding member of the National Security Network, a nonprofit advocacy organization. She has held the position of communications director both at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and, prior to that, on the House Committee on Homeland Security Democratic Staff. Moira started her career in editorial and legislative outreach roles at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Moira is a graduate of Regis University in Denver, Colorado, and completed her coursework for a master’s degree in international relations at Old Dominion University. Moira is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has served as a Senior non-resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab and is a board member for the Digital Diplomacy Coalition. She annually teaches a course on digital diplomacy at the College of Europe Natolin.

Sahana Dharmapuri is the Director of Our Secure Future, a program of One Earth Future Foundation. From 2006-2016 she was an independent gender advisor on gender, peace, and security issues to USAID, NATO, The Swedish Armed Forces, the United States Institute for Peace, International Peace Institute, and other international development organizations. Ms. Dharmapuri was a writer-residence at the Carey Institute for Global Good (Winter 2016) where she completed her first book, Women, Peace & Security: 10 Things You Should Know. She was appointed a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2011-2013) and she was an Investing in Women in Development Fellow at the United States Agency for International Development (2003-2005). She has published widely on Women, Peace and Security issues including with CNN, Christian Science Monitor, The Fletcher Security Review, Hedaya and The Center for Global Counter-Terrorism, Women’s E-News, Human Rights Quarterly, The Global Responsibility to Protect Journal, The Global Observatory, The Alliance for Peacebuilding Online Journal, the Louisiana Literature Review, The US Naval War College’s Women, Peace and Security monograph series, and Parameters: The Senior Professional Journal of the US Army. She received her Bachelor’s and two Master’s degrees from the University of Chicago. She is a very happy breast-cancer survivor.

Amelia Lester is the executive editor at Foreign Policy. She has worked as a journalist on three continents, most recently reporting in Japan for publications including the Economist, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books. Previously, she was editor in chief of the weekend magazine of the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age newspapers and, before that, managing editor and an executive editor of the New Yorker. Amelia lives in Washington, D.C., and is a graduate of Harvard University.