Mentoring

Interdisciplinary Research Group on Privacy

Since 2016, I have mentored over 150 undergraduate and graduate students through the award-winning Interdisciplinary Research Group on Privacy (IRGP), a program I started at UC Berkeley. Students from every imaginable major gain practical experience and can also receive course credit through the Sociology Department or Haas School of Business. Long -serving students and alumni also have the opportunity to become paid staff.

The discovery-oriented, research (and professional) skills training program focuses on the review, discussion, translation, and dissemination of privacy, surveillance, and cybersecurity knowledge to the public. An endeavor that actively counters disinformation on topics commonly explained in complex academic articles that live behind paywalls.

Undergraduate participants each produce an annotated bibliography, encyclopedia article (Wikipedia), blogpost, present their research at twice yearly lab-hosted undergraduate research symposia and also at numerous conferences. Since its inception, the students have founded and edited privacy, cybersecurity, surveillance, and whistleblower related Wikipedia pages in multiple languages. Those pages currently have over 260 million views.

According to WikiEdu, only 20% of those editing Wikipedia globally are women and even fewer are people of color. The Interdisciplinary Research Group on Privacy is the largest, most diverse, most consistent, and longest running group of women editing Wikipedia in the world. IRGP offers students a small liberal arts college feel at a large public institution.

Student participants gain experience in a range of activities in addition to research, including: public speaking, grant writing, project management, event planning, budgeting, web design, social media management, video editing, meeting design and management, and get support in planning for their future (applying for jobs and graduate school, document review, etc).

IMPACT & AWARDS

  • Fast approaching 1 million words added

  • 263 million views of the articles we have created or edited

  • #3 among academic Wikipedia editing initiatives 

  • Largest, most diverse, most consistent, and longest running group of women/women of color editing Wikipedia 

  • 2023, Awardee, Outstanding Graduate Student Peer Mentor Award, Graduate Assembly, University of California Berkeley

  • 2021, Nominee, Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times Award, Academic Senate Committee on Teaching, University of California Berkeley

  • 2019, Awardee, Chancellor’s Award for Public Service, Robert J. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Recognition Award for Service to Underrepresented Students, Office of the Chancellor, University of California Berkeley

  • 2019, Awardee, K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, American Association of Colleges & Universities

  • 2018, Awardee, Digital Pedagogy Trailblazer Award, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of California Berkeley

*IRGP is housed in the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Originally called the “I Regret to Inform You that Your Private Information has been Compromised” project, IRGP emerged from the Student Mentoring and Research Teams (SMART) Program at Berkeley in 2016 and returned to participate again in 2019. Administered by the Graduate Division, the SMART Program enables doctoral students to provide mentored research opportunities for undergraduate students at UC Berkeley. This program is designed to broaden the professional development of doctoral students and to foster research skills and paths to advanced studies for undergraduates. The program provides summer funding for both graduate and undergraduate participants and opportunities to share research results on campus and at national conferences.