Research Coordination Team
Anita Gurumurthy
Principal Researcher
Anita Gurumurthy is the founding member and executive director at IT for Change. Through her work, Anita has attempted to promote conversations between theory and practice. She heads the research responsibilities at IT for Change.
Nandini Chami
Co-Lead
Nandini's research is in the areas of digital rights and development, and women's rights in the information society. She has supported the organisation’s advocacy efforts around the 2030 development agenda on issues of ‘data for development’, and digital technologies and gender justice.
Deepti Bharthur
Project Lead
Deepti Bharthur is a Research Associate at IT for Change. She contributes to academic, action, and policy research in the areas of e-governance and digital citizenship, data economy, platforms and digital exclusions.
The Voice or Chatter Research Network
Delia Dumitrica
Assistant Professor, Erasmus University
Dr. Delia Dumitrica is an Assistant Professor in Political Communication in the Department of Media and Communication at Erasmus University. Her main interests focus on the discursive construction of social media in politics and she is currently researching the use of social media by grassroots activists in Canada. Her work has appeared in journals such as Convergence – The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, First Monday, Javnost –The Public, Canadian Journal of Communication, and Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism.
Ismael Peña-López
Lecturer, Open University of Catalonia
Ismael Peña-López is a lecturer at the School of Law and Political Science of the Open University of Catalonia, and researcher at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute and the eLearn Center in the university. He has a PhD in the Information and Knowledge Society and works in the field of Public Policies for Development, with a special focus on ICT. He follows a social sciences multidisciplinary approach: economics, sociology, political science and pedagogy. He is also the director of the Open Innovation project and runs the website ictology.
Mariana Georgetti Valente
Director, InternetLab, Brazil
Mariana Georgetti Valente is the Director at InternetLab, Sao Paulo, Brazil and the project lead for the Gender and Technology Project. She is a PhD candidate in Sociology of Law at the University of São Paulo, where she also earned her Masters degree. She currently coordinates, at the same university, the Law, Internet and Society Nucleous (NDIS-USP) and is a junior researcher at the Brazilian Center of Law and Democracy for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), where she co-authored research for the Thinking the Law program (Ministry of Justice). Previously she has been a consultant for the Digital Collections Project at the Center for Technology and Society, FGV.
Cristian Berrio-Zapata
Associate Professor, Federal University of Pará (UFPA)
Cristian Berrio-Zapata is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) in Brazil. He received his PhD in Information Science (2015) from the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). His research work focuses on the area of Strategic management of Information and Communication Technology and knowledge, exclusion and digital Inclusion, digital as a form of domination, and research methodologies in the study of technology narratives. and digital semiotics and construction of digital ontologies in Latin America.
Kathleen Diga
Research Project Manager, University of Kwazulu-Natal
Kathleen Diga is a Research Project Manager for the DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Applied Poverty Assessment based at School of Built Environment & Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban South Africa. Her main focus of research is in the poverty and socio-economic dimensions of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). She is currently working on her PhD at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Prior to joining UKZN, Kathleen worked for a Canadian research agency on issues around ICT4D in Africa.
Ana Rivoir
Professor, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay
Ana Rivoir is a researcher and professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay. She received her doctorate in 2012 from the Open University of Catalonia, Spain. Her areas of research includes information society, polícies and inequalities. She coordinates the research group ObervaTIC (Observatory on Information and Communication Technologies at Universidad de la República and is a member of the National System of Researchers of Uruguay.
Alan De Guzman Alegre
Executive Director, Foundation for Media Alternatives, Philippines
For 20 years Al Alegre has been involved in framing ICT policy and internet governance discourse within a strong public interest perspective, in Philippine, Asian, and global arenas. As long-time Executive Director of the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA), Al has overseen initiatives in digital inclusion, Internet freedom, open governance, privacy rights, and gender-fair ICTs. He now spearheads various research and advocacy work at the intersection of human rights, digital democracy, and good governance. He leads the FMA Research Team for the Voice & Chatter Research, which includes Randy Tuano, Emmanuel Lallana, and Lisa Garcia.
Obadia Okinda
Lecturer, Co-operative University College of Kenya (CUCK)
Obadia Okinda is a lecturer at the Co-operative University College of Kenya (CUCK). He obtained his doctoral degree in Development Studies at the University of the KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (2014). He researches development intervention outcomes and has looked at the role of ICTs in poverty reduction, participatory development, outcomes of coffee value chain interventions in East Africa and impacts of labour standards in cutflower farms in Kenya and Tanzania. Obadia is a member of the Knowledge Platform on Inclusive Development Policies (INCLUDE).