Our Team

Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Journalist; Cofounder and CEO of Rappler; Professor of Practice of International and Public Affairs; Director, Technology & Democracy Initiative, Institute of Global Politics

A journalist in Asia for nearly four decades, Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital-only news site that is leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler’s CEO, Ressa has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail ten times to stay free. Rappler’s battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary, A Thousand Cuts. In October 2021, she was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

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Associate Professor of Practice of International and Public Affairs; Director, Technology & Democracy Initiative, Institute of Global Politics

Camille François specializes in how organized actors use digital technologies to harm society and individuals. Her work to understand and mitigate digital harms spans from cyber conflict to online harassment. She has advised governments and parliamentary committees on both sides of the Atlantic—from investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election on behalf of the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee, to leading the French government’s recent inquiry into the economic opportunities and social challenges presented by the metaverse. She currently serves as the Senior Director for Trust & Safety at Niantic, a pioneering augmented reality and gaming company. She was previously Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, a cybersecurity company focused on detecting disinformation networks, where she oversaw its Investigation, Analysis, Product and R&D teams.

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Researcher and SIPA Adjunct

Jen Weedon is an experienced leader who has focused on ensuring safer and more secure online experiences for almost two decades. She began her career in the cybersecurity industry, working to anticipate digital threats and contextualize their impacts through intelligence analysis and risk management across government, industry, and civil society. A strong advocate for online community welfare,  she transitioned to focus more directly on user safety while at Facebook from 2015-2022, where she built teams and spearheaded novel efforts focused on identifying and disrupting complex harms ranging from child safety,  hate and extremism, influence operations and counter-surveillance; her teams’ work helped shape the trust and safety intelligence field as it exists today.  She later worked in the fields of online gaming and augmented reality, shifting her focus to preventative efforts, red teaming, and safety by design.

Associate Director of Policy

Lauren Hoffman is an associate director of policy for the Institute of Global Politics (IGP) at Columbia SIPA, where she helps lead policy research and programming for the IGP American Democracy, Ann F. Kaplan Women’s, and Technology & Democracy Initiatives and serves as IGP’s lead strategic advisor on domestic policy. She is also an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs at SIPA. Hoffman was previously the special assistant to Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and associate director of IGP. Prior to Columbia, Hoffman was the associate director of the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, focusing on women’s economic security. Hoffman’s work has been cited by The New York Times, BBC, the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform, Deloitte, The Urban Institute, amicus briefs, and law review articles. Her commentary has been featured in CNBC, Business Insider, Ms. Magazine, The Daily Beast, and MarketWatch. Hoffman has also worked at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, TIME’S UP, the National Women’s Law Center, the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, and with the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. She started her career as a legal analyst at Goldman Sachs. Hoffman graduated with a JD from American University Washington College of Law and a BA from Yale University in Political Science and French.