speaker photo

Dr. Alexis Wichowski (she/her)

Professor of Professional Practice & Program Director, MS in Technologies, Columbia University

Dr. Alexis Wichowski works, teaches, and writes on technology, government, and power. She currently serves as Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University's School of Professional Studies as well as Program Director for the MS and Executive MS Technology management and affiliate faculty with Columbia's School of International & Public Affairs, where she's been teaching as an adjunct for over a decade. Her public service work focuses on technology in government, agency communications, and technology policy.

Recent roles include Deputy Chief Technology Officer for the City of New York, Associate Commissioner for NYC's Department of Veterans' Services, and various roles within the US Department of State and the US Mission to the United Nations. Past life work includes disaster relief, literary translation, media impact research, indexing, coding, theater production, and pretzel vending. Alexis Wichowski holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from SUNY Albany and a BA in Chinese from Connecticut College, completed in three years.

Photo Credit - Christine Cearnal

Sessions

Inspiring & Interacting

Humans in the room: how to build tech that won’t kill us

In this talk, Alexis Wichowski, former Deputy Chief Technology Officer for New York City and long-serving public servant, professor, and author of the 2020 book The Information Trade: How Big Tech Conquers Countries, Challenges Our Rights and Transforms Our World (HarperCollins), asks why we continue to build tech that harms us and explores ways to course correct and design more humane tech that serves the whole human experience.  See More.