About
People
Creative Commons is a growing collaborative effort led by a core of directors, advisors, and staff. Read more about our team below.
Board of Directors
- Hal Abelson
- James Boyle (Chair)
- Michael Carroll
- Davis Guggenheim
- Joi Ito
- Lawrence Lessig
- Laurie Racine
- Eric Saltzman
- Molly Shaffer Van Houweling
- Jimmy Wales
- Esther Wojcicki
Audit Committee
Technical Advisory Board
Staff
Science Commons
- Alan Bawden
- Jacob Beal
- Tony Loeser
- Thinh Nguyen
- Jonathan Rees
- Alan Ruttenberg
- Kaitlin Thaney
- Donna Wentworth
- John Wilbanks
Berlin Office
ccLearn
Board of Directors
Hal Abelson
Hal Abelson is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and a fellow of IEEE. He is winner of several major teaching awards at MIT, as well as the IEEE’s Booth Education Award, cited for his contributions to the teaching of undergraduate computer science.
Abelson has a longstanding interest in using computation as a conceptual framework in teaching. He directed the first implementation of the Logo compater language for the Apple Computer, which made programming for children widely available on personal computers beginning in 1981. Together with Gerald Sussman, Abelson developed MIT’s introductory computer science subject, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, a subject organized around the notion that a computer language is primarily a formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology, rather than just a way to get a computer to perform operations. This work, through a popular computer science textbook and video lectures has had a world-wide impact on university computer-science education.
Abelson is a founding director of the Free Software Foundation and Public Knowledge, as well as a a founding director of Creative Commons. At MIT, Abelson is is co-director of MIT’s Council on Educational Technology, which oversees the Institute’s strategic educational technology planning.
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James Boyle (Chair)
James Boyle is William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, the co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Creative Commons. He writes on intellectual property, cyberspace, and social and legal theory. In 2003 he won the World Technology Network Award for Law. He is also a board member of the Public Library of Science.
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Michael Carroll
Michael W. Carroll is a Visiting Professor of Law at the American University, Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. His full-time appointment is as Professor of Law at the Villanova University School of Law. His teaching and scholarly interests focus on intellectual property and the law of the Internet. Professor Carroll has been a member of the Creative Commons Board since 2001, and he is a member of the subset of Directors who advise Science Commons and ccLearn.
Prior to entering law teaching, Professor Carroll was an attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where his practice focused on intellectual property and Internet-related issues. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Judith W. Rogers of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Joyce Hens Green of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Carroll received his A.B. with general honors from the University of Chicago and his J.D. magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Before attending law school, Carroll worked as a journalist, a high school teacher in Zimbabwe, and a program officer for democracy and governance projects in Africa.
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Davis Guggenheim
Davis Guggenheim is a director and producer of both documentary and dramatic film and television. In 1999, he undertook an ambitious project documenting the challenging first year of several novice public school teachers. Two films resulted from this intensive immersion in the Los Angeles public school system: The First Year and Teach. Both films sought to address the tremendous need for qualified teachers in California and nationwide and to create awareness of the crisis — as well as to inspire a new generation to become teachers.
Davis was an Executive Producer on Training Day and directed a feature film called Gossip, both for Warner Bros. His television directing credits include recently completed episodes of “The Shield,” “Alias” and “24″ as well as such critically acclaimed programs as “NYPD Blue,” “ER,” and “Party of Five.” He is currently a Producer and Director of the upcoming HBO series “Deadwood.”
Guggenheim’s other documentary films include Norton Simon: A Man and His Art, produced for permanent exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum, and JFK and the Imprisoned Child, produced for permanent exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Library. Guggenheim wrote and edited many films with his father, four-time Academy Award winner Charles Guggenheim. Davis graduated from Brown University in 1986.
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Joi Ito
Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons, and founder and CEO of Neoteny, a venture capital firm focused on personal communications and enabling technologies. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time ranked him as a member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the “50 Stars of Asia” by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” for 2002.
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Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the School’s Center for Internet and Society. In 2002, he was named one of 50 top innovators by Scientific American. Lessig earned a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale.
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Laurie Racine
Laurie Racine is co-founder and President of dotSUB, a young technology company that has developed a free, browser based tool for subtitling films from one language into any other language. Racine holds the position of Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center of the Annenberg School of Communications, University of Southern California. She is Chair of the board of Teachers Without Borders and serves on the board of directors of National Video Resources. Until she closed the foundation in January of 2006, Racine served as President of the Center for the Public Domain, a private foundation endowed by the founders of Red Hat, Inc. During her tenure, she co-founded Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C. based public interest group that is working to sustain a vibrant information commons. She serves as Chair of the Board. Racine was the first managing director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and then served as President of Doc Arts for six years, the non-profit corporation that produces the festival. Before starting the Center for the Public Domain, Racine was the Director of the Health Sector Management Program at the Fuqua School of Business of Duke University. She has spent many years as a strategist and consultant for non-profit and for-profit enterprises.
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Eric Saltzman
A 1972 graduate of Harvard Law School, Eric F. Saltzman began his career as a criminal defense attorney in Seattle’s and Boston’s public defender offices. While teaching in Harvard Law School’s Criminal Trial Advocacy program, Saltzman took up filmmaking at MIT’s renowned Film Section and re-created trials as teaching tools. Moving from re-creation to verite, Saltzman introduced cameras into actual courtrooms with The Shooting of Big Man: Anatomy of a Criminal Case (a two hour special on ABC News in 1979, now available for Creative Commons license here). For CBS News, he produced and directed Miami: The Trial That Sparked the Riots, an investigation of a police homicide, its cover-up, and the ultimate trial of the police officers. These and other films have won Emmy and ABA Silver Gavel awards, among others. In the mid-1980s, Saltzman moved into the film business and began acquiring and licensing libraries of classic motion picture and television rights for emerging media such as cable, microwave and satellite transmission. In 2000-2002, Saltzman was executive director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He is a member of the bars of Washington State and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and on the boards of not-for-profits in the area of race and poverty and the extension of Internet services to the human rights and legal services sectors. He lives with his wife and two boys in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Molly Shaffer Van Houweling
Formerly the Executive Director of Creative Commons and a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling is Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Van Houweling graduated in June 1998 from Harvard Law School, where she was Articles Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Following graduation, Ms. Van Houweling was a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and one of the first staff members at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). She then served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin, of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court.
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Jimmy Wales
The founder and President of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit corporation which operates Wikipedia and several other wiki projects. Wales is also founder of the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. (legally unrelated to Wikimedia).
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Esther Wojcicki
Esther Wojcicki has been teaching Journalism and English at Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, California for the past 25 years, where she has been the driving force behind the development of its award-winning journalism program. It is now the largest high school journalism program in the U.S involving 400 students. All the publications can be found at http://voice.paly.net which is the school publication website. In the spring of 2008, she was recognized for inspiration and excellence in scholastic journalism advising by the National Scholastic Press Association. She has won multiple awards throughout the years. A couple of others included the 1990 Northern California Journalism teacher of the year in 1990 and California State Teacher Credentialing Commission Teacher of the Year in 2002. She served on the University of California Office of the President Curriculum Committee where she helped revise the beginning and advanced journalism curriculum for the state of California. In 2005–6 she worked as the Google educational consultant and helped design the Google Teacher Outreach program, which includes the website www.google.com/educators and the Google Teacher Academy. She holds a B.A. degree from UC Berkeley in English and Political Science, a general secondary teaching credential from UC Berkeley, a graduate degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, an advanced degree in French and French History from the Sorbonne, Paris, a Secondary School Administrative Credential from San Jose State University, and a M.A. in Educational Technology from San Jose State University. She has also worked as a professional journalist for multiple publications and now blogs regularly for HuffingtonPost and HotChalk.
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Audit Committee
Molly Shaffer Van Houweling
Formerly the Executive Director of Creative Commons and a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling is Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Van Houweling graduated in June 1998 from Harvard Law School, where she was Articles Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Following graduation, Ms. Van Houweling was a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and one of the first staff members at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). She then served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin, of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court.
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Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the School’s Center for Internet and Society. In 2002, he was named one of 50 top innovators by Scientific American. Lessig earned a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale.
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Technical Advisory Board
Ben Adida
Ben Adida is Research Faculty at the Harvard Medical School and a Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. Ben studies cryptography applied to public policy problems, in particular in the fields of medical informatics, web security, voting, and rights/policy expression with the Semantic Web. Ben began building web applications in 1995, co-founded two open-source web technology startups, and is an experienced free software developer and community lead. Ben was Creative Commons’s first CTO and is currently the Creative Commons representative to the World-Wide Web Consortium, where he chairs the task force on RDFa. Ben received his PhD, Masters, and Bachelors in Computer Science from MIT.
Barbara Fox
Barbara Fox is a Senior Software Architect, Cryptography and Digital Rights Management for Microsoft Corporation. She is also currently a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She serves on the National Academies of Science Committee on “Authentication Technologies and Their Implications for Privacy,” the Technical Advisory Board of “The Creative Commons,” and the Board of Directors of the International Financial Cryptography Association. Ms. Fox joined Microsoft in 1993 as Director of Advanced Product Development and led the company’s electronic commerce technology development group. She has co-authored Internet standards in the areas of Public Key Infrastructure and XML security. Her research at Harvard focuses on digital copyright law, public policy, and privacy.
Immediately prior to Microsoft, Ms. Fox was President of SystemSoft America, a Macintosh software development company in Palo Alto, California, and in addition she was a consultant to Visa International. Between 1981 and 1984, she was Engineering Development Manager for AppleTalk at Apple Computer.
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Don McGovern
Don McGovern is a Senior Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Prior to joining the Berkman Center, Don was the World Wide R&D Manager for Hewlett-Packard Operations (HPO). In this capacity he was responsible for managing the five software engineering laboratories of HPO. McGovern has been a board director of X/Open Company Limited, the Open Software Foundation (OSF), and the X Consortium. He is currently on the board development committee at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA, and is a head coach for the Beacon Hill community girl’s softball league. Don is married, has three children, and resides in Boston, MA.
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Eric Miller
Eric Miller is the Activity Lead for the W3C World Wide Web Consortium’s Semantic Web Initiative. Before joining the W3C, Eric was a Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., and the co-founder and Associate Director of the The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. Eric holds a Research Scientist appointment at MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science.
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Staff
Fred Benenson, Culture Program Associate
Started: Jun 2008
While studying philosophy and computer science, Fred co-founded the Free Culture @ NYU chapter of Students for Free Culture, an international student movement focused on copyright reform, technology advocacy, and digital activism and currently serves on the board of the organization. In 2005 Fred staged the first-of-their-kind DRM protests, and continued working with his chapter to organize several conferences, art exhibitions and lectures focused on free culture. In April 2008 Fred launched his thesis for his masters at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program named Cause Caller; a web service designed to help citizens organize virtual phone banks using VoIP-based telephony and a semantic media wiki. He is based out of New York City and spends his spare time with the Rubik’s cube, bicycles, and cameras.
Kevin Birtchnell, Chief Financial Officer
Started: Mar 2007
Kevin Birtchnell is the Chief Financial Officer for Creative Commons. Kevin brings over 15 years experience of financial, accounting and business management. He has extensive experience of successfully growing a business through organic growth, of mergers and acquisitions, of various types of fund raising to include complex debt instruments and IPO’s, and of managing all of the significant business functions. Kevin graduated in Science from London University and is a qualified Chartrered Accountant. Originally from England, he now lives in San Francisco where he manages various business ventures and enjoys piloting small aircraft in his spare time.
Diane Cabell, Corporate Counsel
Started: 2001
Diane Cabell, the Secretary and Corporate Counsel for Creative Commons, was the founder of the Clinical Program in Cyberlaw at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. She is a co-director of Chlling Effects and sits on the advisory boards of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at University of Ottawa and the Center for Law and Innovation at the University of Maine School of Law.
Allison Domicone, Development Assistant
Started: Apr 2008
Allison graduated from the University of San Francisco in May of 2008, with a double major in French and International Studies. Her passions include traveling any and everywhere, spending hours cooking meals that may or may not end up tasting good, attending live performances of any kind, and dabbling with dance classes from time to time. She also does volunteer work on the side for an inspiring international non-profit, Akili Dada, that provides scholarships and mentoring activities to underprivileged young Kenyan women. She is thrilled to be joining the Creative Commons team and looks forward to helping the vision grow!
Benjamin Emery, Accountant
Started: Nov 2006
Benjamin brings to Creative Commons 15 years experience with non-profit financial management and accounting. He has worked in various public benefit industries, most recently managing affordable housing portfolios here in the Bay Area. Benjamin sits on the board of directors of the San Francisco Community Land Trust, where he serves as the corporate
Treasurer. A cultural anthropologist by training, he received his B.S. from Michigan State University and his M.A. from the University of Chicago.
Steren Giannini, Software Developer
Started: Jun 2008
Steren Giannini is a French student from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, a college of general engeneering. He has been developing websites for companies to make some spending money and worked more recently on Inkscape.
Joi Ito, CEO
Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons, and founder and CEO of Neoteny, a venture capital firm focused on personal communications and enabling technologies. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time ranked him as a member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the “50 Stars of Asia” by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” for 2002.
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Nathan Kinkade, Web Engineer
Started: June 2007
Nathan has worked and tinkered in the area of computers and technology for around the past ten years. Shortly after his entry into the technology field he discovered free software and realized that that was where he wanted to focus. In 2003 Nathan went to Belize, Central America with the Peace Corps as an Information Technology volunteer, working to promote free software at the University of Belize. After completing his service with the Peace Corps, he studied Spanish in Mexico for a semester and then moved to Panama where he was very fortunate to find work as a GNU/Linux system administrator and web programmer at one of the few companies actively promoting free software in Panama. Nathan holds a B.A. in history from Emory University.
Asheesh Laroia, Software Engineer
Started: July 2007
By the light of day, Asheesh Laroia builds software for Creative Commons. In the past, he has volunteered technical help at the World Food Programme in Uganda and interned at CC. His interest in technology and society led him to participate in an EFF case to rein in a company’s abuse of copyright law, to maintain software in Debian, and to lead the FreeCulture.org web team. In five years at the Johns Hopkins University, he juggled with the Entertainers Club from the start and spent two years each in leadership roles for the Entertainers Club and the Association for Computing Machinery chapter. After graduating, he holds an M.S.E. in computer science but is just as proud of the B.A. in cognitive science and the minors that adorn it.
Mike Linksvayer, Vice President, Creative Commons
Started: Apr 2003
Mike Linksvayer joined Creative Commons as CTO. Previously he co-founded Bitzi. He has over ten years’ experience as an enterprise software, web, and multimedia developer and consultant and holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Cameron Parkins, Culture Program Assistant
Started: June 2007
Cameron Parkins is in his last year as an undergrad at USC where he is majoring in International Relations with an emphasis in multimedia scholarship. Outside of school he enjoys playing music, sleeping, eating, and free-ing culture. Sometimes you can catch him at your local park trying to dunk a basketball like Shawn Kemp.
Diane Peters, General Counsel
Started: May 2008
As General Counsel for CC, Diane oversees the organization’s legal strategy, affairs and projects. She serves on the board of the Software Freedom Law Center. Prior to joining CC, she served as general counsel for Open Source Development Labs (now, the Linux Foundation), and thereafter was legal counsel to Mozilla. She is experienced at providing strategic advice and leadership on an array of IP issues impacting communities and the technology industry, including open source projects, FOSS licensing, and IP reform efforts and policy. Diane received a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1986 and a J.D. from Washington University in 1989. She is based in Portland, Oregon.
Jon Phillips, Business Development and Community Liaison
Started: Sep 2005
Jon Phillips is an open source developer, artist and scholar with 13+ years of experience building communities and computing culture. He is currently developing the Open Source project the Open Clip Art Library, works for Creative Commons and teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute in the Design+Technology department.
Melissa Reeder, Development Manager
Started: Jul 2006
Melissa, a native Texan, re-located to San Francisco from Providence, RI to work at CC. She volunteers weekly for First Exposures, a youth mentoring program, where she teaches black and white photography. She holds a MA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Art and Design Education and a BFA in studio art—photography from Texas State University. She also likes to laugh occasionally.
Alex Roberts, Senior Designer
Started: Nov 2005
Alex Roberts is the graphic designer for Creative Commons, in charge of graphics on the web and in print. He graduated from the Art Institute of California — San Francisco, and brings with him many years of experience in open source, and design. Originally from England, he now lives in the Bay Area, enjoying photography, motorcycles, and tinkering with open source software.
Virginia Rutledge, Special Counsel
Started: Oct 2007
Virginia joined Creative Commons as Vice President and General Counsel from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, where her practice included intellectual property, antitrust, art and entertainment law. She has represented major global clients in many sectors of the media and content industries, and has extensive pro bono and nonprofit experience. As VP and GC, Virginia saw Creative Commons through its fifth year anniversary development drive and led its successful defense in litigation. In July 2008, she became Special Counsel, leading special legal projects from New York City, where she is based. Virginia holds a J.D. from Berkeley and an M.Phil. in art history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the current chair of the Art Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Ani Sittig, Office Manager
Started: Aug 2007
Ani Sittig is the administrative assistant at Creative Commons. Originally from Southern California, she received her Political Science degree from U.C. Berkeley and became a happy transplant to the Bay Area. She has worked as an assistant in event planning and as a third-grade teacher. In her free time she likes reading old books, watching Cal sports and finding interesting places to eat out.
Eric Steuer, Creative Director
Started: Nov 2005
Eric develops arts and culture projects for Creative Commons. He is a contributing editor for Wired and writes for The Fader. He is the co-founder of Sneakmove Recordings and is in a hip hop group called Meanest Man Contest.
Frank Tobia, Software Developer
Started: Jun 2008
Frank Tobia is an undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, studying Computer and Systems Engineering as well as Economics. Frank hails from New Jersey and is still deciding what to do with himself, with grad school and law school at the top of the list. He is an active editor of Wikipedia, and maintains interests in intellectual property law, economic theory, wine, and memorizing various texts and numerical constants. He also happens to be a programmer, favoring Python over less divinely inspired languages.
Nathan Yergler, CTO
Started: Jun 2004
Nathan Yergler (yergler.net) joined Creative Commons as a software engineer. Previously he held a faculty position at Canterbury School, where he pioneered the use of Python in their Computer Science courses, developing both introductory and advanced elective curricula. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University (Fort Wayne).
Jennifer Yip, Operations Manager
Started: Oct 2005
Jennifer Yip comes to Creative Commons from the ole’ midwest. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelors’ degree in Anthropology. After continuing to work for the University of Michigan Health System, she decided to leave the land of seven-month coldness and now enjoys San Francisco’s plethora of restaurants, shopping, museums, and live performance.
Science Commons
Alan Bawden, Lead Software Engineer
Started: Oct 2007
Alan Bawden is a computer scientist with interests in programming languages, network protocols, mathematics, and system administration. Prior to joining Science Commons, he has worked in both industry and academia. He has developed a embedded web server for limited memory devices, done research on linear types for programming languages, and worked as a consultant doing both systems administration and software engineering. He was also involved in the standardization of the languages Common Lisp and Scheme. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
In his spare time, Alan also administers a number of mailing lists for people affected by brain tumors and related conditions.
Jacob Beal, Fellow
Started: Aug 2008
Jacob Beal is a researcher working on engineered self-organization: the science of obtaining predictable aggregate behavior from collections of unreliable devices with local and non-linear interactions. His focus in this area is on problems of system integration for human-level intelligence and on problems of modelling and control for spatially-distributed networks like sensor networks, robotic swarms, and cells during morphogenesis. Dr. Beal, who has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, is completing a postdoctoral position at MIT and beginning as a Scientist at BBN Technologies in Fall, 2008.
Tony Loeser, Lead Knowledge Architect
Started: Oct 2007
Tony joined Science Commons to work on biomedical ontologies, the computer vocabularies that facilitate the sharing of research results and annotations. Previous experience in this field came as principal engineer and architect at Ingenuity Systems, one of the pioneers in biomedical knowledge engineering. Tony has also held positions as computer scientist and as engineering manager, most recently as VP Engineering at a contextual advertising startup, Tumri Inc. His graduate degrees from Stanford include a PhD in physics and an MSCS with research at the Knowledge Systems Laboratory. Tony currently lives in Palo Alto, California.
Thinh Nguyen, Science Commons Counsel
Started: Mar 2006
As Counsel for Science Commons, Thinh is responsible for advising on legal issues relating to Science Commons and for implementing its strategy and operations. Thinh joined Science Commons after working as licensing attorney, and then corporate counsel, for Business Objects, a maker of business intelligence and reporting software. He also worked as licensing attorney for Crystal Decisions, Inc., prior to its acquisition by Business Objects. Before that, he practiced as an associate in the Technology Transactions Group of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, a Silicon Valley law firm, where his work focused mainly on licensing transactions involving strategic collaborations and joint ventures, particularly in life sciences. Thinh received a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Harvard University in 1996 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1999. He is admitted to practice in California.
Jonathan Rees, Principal Scientist, Neurocommons Project
Started: Jan 2006
Jonathan Rees is a computer scientist with interests in biological knowledge representation, the Semantic Web, open access publishing, and software technology. Prior to joining Science Commons he worked in the computational biology group at Millennium Pharmaceuticals on large-scale curated protein interaction networks and their use in the analysis of high-throughput experimental data. Jonathan is also an officer of the Cambridge Entomological Club and has initiated a project to bring 100 volumes of its journal Psyche — one of America’s oldest natural history journals — onto the web. He earned a B.S. in computer science from Yale and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.
Alan Ruttenberg, Principal Scientist, Neurocommons Project
Started: Feb 2007
Alan Ruttenberg’s interest lies in structuring and using biological knowledge to answer scientific questions and to interpret experimental data using computational methods. He is involved in a number of open biomedical ontology efforts, including BioPAX for representing molecular and cellular pathways, OBI, the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations, and BFO the Basic Formal Ontology that will form the upper level ontology for the OBO foundry. Alan is an active participant in the W3C Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group. Alan’s graduate work was at the MIT Media Lab in the Music and Cognition Group, and he has an undergraduate degree in Physics and Mathematics from Brandeis University. Highlights of previous employment include stints at Thinking Machines and Interval Research. Prior to joining Science Commons, Alan worked at Millennium Pharmaceuticals as a senior scientist in the computational biology group for 8.5 years.
Kaitlin Thaney, Science Commons Project Manager
Started: Dec 2006
Kaitlin joins the Creative Commons team as the Office and Project Manager of Science Commons. A Rochester, New York native, Kaitlin comes to Science Commons with a background deeply rooted in news and policy. She most recently has been working as the communications coordinator for MIT iCampus, a research alliance between the university and Microsoft, centered on education technology. She also spent time working as a journalism intern for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, VA. Prior to that, Kaitlin worked as a correspondent for The Boston Globe’s City/Region section from June 2004 through August 2005. Kaitlin did her undergraduate work at Northeastern University, where she received two degrees — one in journalism and the other in political science.
Donna Wentworth, Communications Specialist
Started: Oct 2007
Donna Wentworth joins Creative Commons as a Communications Specialist. She has spent a decade writing about the legal and technological developments shaping the Internet. An affiliate of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Donna helped forge the organization’s voice from its infancy in 1997. In addition to writing the Berkman Center’s newsletter, she “live-blogged” several iterations of its flagship iLAW conference. Inspired by what she learned, she created Copyfight: the Politics of IP, a Corante weblog column exploring copyright and innovation. From Sept. 2003 - Oct. 2005, she was a web writer/activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where she launched and edited Deep Links, the staff weblog. Since 2005, she has been working as a writer for Google, focusing primarily on communications surrounding Google Book Search. She has spoken about weblogs and why they matter at Yale and Berkeley.
John Wilbanks, Vice President, Science Commons
Started: Oct 2004
As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark.
John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He is a research affiliate at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the project on Mathematics and Computation. John also serves on the Advisory Boards of the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central, the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Open Knowledge Definition, and the International Advisory Board of the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities awards. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fedora Commons digital repository organization.
Berlin Office
Patricia Escalera, Office Manager
Started: Jul 2007
Patricia Escalera is originally from Mexico, but she moved to Berlin in 2005 to unite with her German husband. Patricia graduated from Minnesota State University with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and prior to joining Creative Commons she worked with an organization establishing links between Latin American and German culture, science and business.
Catharina Maracke, Director, Creative Commons International
Started: Oct 2006
Catharina studied law in Germany and graduated from the University of Kiel and the Hamburg Court of Appeal with the first and second state examination. While studying she obtained a scholarship from the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in Munich to write her PhD thesis on the History of the German Copyright Act of 1965. During the legal preparatory service she worked for several German Courts, the German Patent Office and the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Toronto. After finishing her legal education, Catharina worked for the law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP in their Munich office. Afterwards she spent three months at the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo where she did research and taught design protection and copyright law.
Michelle Thorne, Project Assistant
Started: Jul 2007
Michelle is a recent graduate from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts (BA in Critical Social Thought and German Studies), where she wrote an honors thesis on authorship, originality, and American copyright law. Michelle also studied at the University of Leipzig, and still calls Heidelberg, Germany her home.
ccLearn
Ahrash N. Bissell, Executive Director, ccLearn
Started: Jun 2007
Ahrash Bissell comes to CC from Duke University (Durham, NC) where he was a Research Associate in Biology and the Assistant Director of the Academic Resource Center. He received his BS in Biology in 1994 from UC San Diego, followed by a Ph.D. in Biology in 2001 from the University of Oregon, where he pursued research on animal behavior and evolutionary genetics. While he has continued an active research and teaching program in biology, the bulk of his time in recent years was focused on educational research and technology, pedagogical and curriculum development, assessment (with a focus on critical-thinking skills and metacognition), and facilitating interdisciplinary research, especially via open dissemination, data sharing, and web-based “communities of expertise.” He is also a board member for InnoWorks and a research consultant for the Alexandria Archive Institute.
Andy Brooks, Research Assistant
Started: Jan 2008
Andy Brooks is a research assistant for the ccLearn division of Creative Commons. Andy returns to CC after graduating from SF State where he studied new media. When not liberating educational materials, Andy can be found starting up random web projects, studying the law, and/or watching hours upon hours of professional wrestling footage stored on his MythTV media computer.
Jane Park, Research Assistant
Started: Jan 2008
Jane is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley in Philosophy and Creative Writing. While at Cal, she worked in conjunction with AmeriCorps and the YMCA, promoting higher education to first generation college-bound youth. Around the same time, she found the National Writing Project,
where she worked in event-planning, site development and finance. Outside of school and work, she adopted an affinity for red wine, a yuppie food life style, and a love of night hikes in the Berkeley hills.
