The McCourt School’s Tech & Public Policy program is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023-2024 Tech & Public Policy grants, totaling nearly two million in research funding.
In partnership with Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute), the McCourt School’s Tech & Public Policy (TPP) grant program supports technologists, ethicists, legal scholars and social scientists working in collaboration to explore and articulate novel uses and misuses of technology. The 2023-2024 grantees will investigate the effects of technology on individuals and society, as well as how to address the challenge of new technologies born in the information age.
Laura Donohue, Anna Cave, Jenny Reich, Georgetown University Law Center on National Security
Georgetown Professor Laura K. Donohue and her colleague Jenny Reich coined the term biomanipulation to describe the ability of private and state actors to collect, surveil, predict and alter human behavior using biometric and other biological data produced by human bodies.
Donohue and Reich, joined by Georgetown University Law Center on National Security Executive Director Anna Cave, will build on their research with their proposal, titled “Biomanipulation: The Looming Threat of the Social Media Frontier.” This work draws upon interdisciplinary methods like traditional legal research, design thinking and deliberative democratic political theory, bringing together diverse groups of stakeholders from across society to understand the full implications of biomanipulation for civil rights, national security and the future of the internet.
The goal of this work is to foster a new public dialogue around biomanipulation and the future of social media and the internet. As part of their external engagement, the team is developing an AR/VR experience that will significantly deepen the understanding of those who go through the exhibit, helping them conceive of what opportunities and vulnerabilities could exist in the future. Following this exhibition, Donohue, Cave and Reich hope to build out an ecosystem of policy working groups, industry events, scholarship and related academic infrastructure to increase understanding of this threat as well as catalyze appropriate responses in this pressing new field.
The TPP grant will support the groups initial academic research and stakeholder outreach efforts as they seek to thoroughly analyze the threat of biomanipulation. The grant will also support their initial pilot efforts to develop “Biomanipulation: The Looming Threat.”