The MIT Computational Law Report is an agile, new media online publication that explores the ways that law and legal processes can be reimagined and engineered as computational systems. The Report features:
Written content (such as peer-reviewed articles, essays, and posts);
Rich media content (such as videos, podcasts, visualizations, etc); and
Reproducible software and data projects (such as computational law apps, automated processes, data science projects, games, etc)
The Report is published and edited by law.mit.edu-affiliated academics, researchers, and practitioners. The Report fills a critical need for reputable, responsive, and neutral analysis of emerging computational law applications and thought leadership.
OUR GOALS
Reimagine law as something dynamic, interoperable, and adaptive
Cultivate an open discussion at the intersection of law and computation
Create space for experimenting with new legal technologies
Daniel “Dazza” Greenwood is a researcher at MIT Media Lab and Lecturer at Connection Science, in the MIT School of Engineering, where he is advancing the field of computational law and building out Law.MIT.edu research portfolio. Dazza is also founder of CIVICS.com, a boutique provider of professional consultancy services for legal technologies, automated transactions, data management and technology strategy.
Dazza consults to fortune 100 companies, architecting and building integrated business, legal and technology cross-boundary networks at industry scale. As an attorney, Dazza served as both in-house and special counsel for technology law, representing corporations and governments. Dazza has testified before the US House, US Senate and other legislatures on electronic transactions law and consults extensively to the public sector, including to NASA, GSA, DHS, the UK Cabinet Office and many other public and private sector organizations and global NGOs.
Bryan is a Fellow at MIT Connection Science. Bryan is interested in reimagining the ways technology, design, and visualization can be combined to improve the function of legal systems. Bryan’s work exploring the edges of legal innovation has earned him opportunities to serve as Co-Instructor for the MIT Media Lab's IAP Computational Law Workshop Course, Colleague Instructor for the MIT Media Lab's Global Ventures Course, and Legal Engineer at Brighthive.
Legaltech News listed him as 1 of the 18 Millennials Changing the Face of Legal Tech for work he completed as a fellow with the inaugural class of fellows with ABA Center for Innovation. Before joining MIT, Bryan worked in an interdisciplinary operations role at RiskGenius, an exited InsurTech startup, for over two years. He's been invited to speak at conferences and host workshops in North America and Europe, including the U.N. World Data Forum.
Bryan holds a B.A. from Oklahoma State University (2012) and a J.D. from University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law (2016). More information about his work is available at: bryangw.me
Alex “Sandy” Pentland is founding faculty director of the MIT Connection Science Research Initiative, which uses network science to access and change real-world human behavior, and is the Toshiba Professor of Media, Arts, and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also holds a triple appointment at MIT in Media Arts and Sciences, Engineering Systems Division and with the Sloan School of Business.
Sandy has helped create and direct MIT’s Media Lab, the Media Lab Asia, and the Center for Future Health. He chairs the World Economic Forum's Data Driven Development Council, is Academic Director of the Data-Pop Alliance, and is a member of the Advisory Boards for Google, Nissan, Telefonica, the United Nations Secretary General, Monument Capital, and the Minerva Schools.
In 2012 Forbes named Sandy one of the “seven most powerful data scientists in the world”, along with Google founders and the CTO of the United States, and in 2013 he won the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review. He is among the most-cited computational scientists in the world, and a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, wearable computing (Google Glass), image understanding, and modern biometrics. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, and Harvard Business Review, as well as being the focus of TV features on BBC World, Discover and Science channels. His most recent book is Social Physics, published by Penguin Press.
Over the years Sandy has advised more than 50 PhD students. Almost half are now tenured faculty at leading institutions, with another one-quarter leading industry research groups and a final quarter are founders of their own companies. Sandy's research group and entrepreneurship program have spun off more than 30 companies to date, three of which are publicly listed and several that serve millions of poor in Africa and South Asia. Recent spin-offs have been featured in publications such as The Economist and The New York Times, as well as winning a variety of prizes from international development organizations.
Sandy holds a B.G.S. from University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Andrew is Counsel to SS&C Technologies, a global financial technology corporation. Previously, he was an Associate in national law firms, focusing on corporate law and data privacy. Andrew has advised Ethereum-based decentralized finance projects associated with the Stanford Center for Blockchain Research and the Stanford Journal of Blockchain Law & Policy.
Andrew holds a J.D. from Temple Law School, where he was an Editor of the Temple Law Review, a B.S. in Applied Finance & Accounting from Fordham University, where he was a National Merit Scholar, and is a M.S. candidate in Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. During law school, he served with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the United States Department of Justice, and the Small Business Administration. Prior to law school, Andrew worked in the finance industry for a leading investment firm. He is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US).
Megan Ma is a PhD Candidate in Law and Lecturer at Sciences Po. Megan's research focuses on the significance of language in legal reasoning and interpretation, set against the context of rules-based and data-driven technologies. Her work considers the theoretical frameworks and overlap involved in the philosophy of language and linguistics against logic, computational thinking, and science and technology studies (STS).
Prior to her doctoral studies, Megan had completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics at McGill University and a Master of Laws at Sciences Po Law School, graduating with distinction and cum laude respectively. She has also held Visiting Researcher positions at Cambridge University and Harvard Law School.
Wassim is the founder and host of the 0x Salon, conducting experiments in post-disciplinary collective knowledge practices. The 0x Salon provides an informal space for unstructured discussions of unusual topics and collectively authors outputs based on those conversations. A veteran of the blockchain space, Wassim currently works on conceptual design and philosophy of cryptoeconomic systems at BlockScience, in addition to writing and editorial responsibilities for various publications.
Previously, Wassim co-founded and edited the MIT Media Lab's interdisciplinary Cryptoeconomic Systems (CES) journal and chaired the CES'19 and CES'20 conferences on-campus. Prior to MIT, he was an independent researcher formulating novel approaches to the characterization of cryptographic assets and networks such as the regulatory epistemology project TokenSpace. Wassim has also curated avant-garde arts events, led a creative engineering laboratory and published open-source experimental electronic music. Originally with research specializations in the physical sciences, Wassim holds a PhD in ultrafast supramolecular photophysics from the University of Nottingham alongside degrees in chemistry, astrophysics and finance. More information about Wassim's work is available at: wassim.pubpub.org
