Alissa Centivany is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Her work explores processes of sociotechnical transformation and, in particular, the co-evolution of intellectual property law, technology, ethics, and social practice. She earned her PhD in 2016 from the University of Michigan's School of Information and also holds a JD specializing in intellectual property and technology law. Prior to joining FIMS, she was the inaugural Microsoft Research Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University
of California-Berkeley School of Law and a researcher at the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law.
Alissa Centivany currently teaches graduate courses at FIMS on "Information Ethics" [FIMS 9137] and “Managing and Working in
Information Organizations” [MLIS 9005]. She also regularly supervises graduate students' independent research; recent projects cover topics including artificial intelligence, indigenous archives, open access, ed tech, revenge porn, and more.
Alissa Centivany's research explores processes of sociotechnical transformation and, in particular, the co-evolution of intellectual property law, technology, ethics, and social practice. Current areas of inquiry include: repair, ed tech, participatory policymaking in online environments, and scholarly communications/open access.