Keynote address at the “Metaksherim” conference at Haifa University. Haifa, Israel, December 2015. Photo by Yair Gil.
ThinkMacro is my personal website. I am Dmitry Epstein, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. My work focuses on the intersection of information, technology, policy, and society. Specifically, I study Internet governance along the dimensions of internet regulation, design, and use. Some of the current projects include socio-sematic analysis of internet governance deliberations and comparative study of online privacy, trust, and security. In the past I have also looked into questions of online civic engagement in policymaking, information access, and the digital divide. If you are interested, please visit my research page for further details.
My work is global and cross-disciplinary. Prior to joining the Hebrew University, I was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago where I studied internet governance, information policy discourse, privacy, and the digital divide. Earlier, while working on my PhD in the Department of Communication at Cornell, and as a fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, I have spent time looking into institutionalization of Internet governance and the evolution of Internet governance discourse within the UN. During my postdoc at Cornell Law School, I worked with the interdisciplinary Cornell eRulemaking Initiative investigating technology and practices behind effective online civic engagement in complex policymaking processes. The best way to learn more about my work is through my publications. If you are a student, or a prospective student, interested in what I do, please take a look at the students page.
Among the different academic networks and associations I am part of, I am particularly engaged in the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet). I currently serve as GigaNet Chair and as a member of the Program and Membership committees. If you are a researcher or an activist working on Internet governance, you should consider joining this network. To my academic activity, I bring experiences of working in the venture capital and consulting industries, as well as a record of social activism in international development. Sometimes (rather rarely these days) I share some of my musings about all of the above on my blog. Most of its older content, unfortunately, was lost in mid-2016, so what you see now are mostly recent updates (which are scarce).
My work has appeared in a number of edited volumes and scholarly journals such as The Information Society, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of Information Policy, and Wake Forest Law Review. Please see my publications page for references and papers.
This website was inspired by websites of other scholars whom I respect as scholars, communicators, and people. Many thanks to Dan Cosley, Eszter Hargittai, Zizi Papacharissi, and Michael Zimmer for maintaining such great web presence!
Last updated: January 2019