Dr. Alissa Centivany is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario working on technology policy, law, and ethics. She holds a PhD in Information and a JD specializing in intellectual property and technology law. Prior to joining FIMS, Dr. Centivany was a Microsoft Research Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, University
of California-Berkeley School of Law, and a researcher at the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy, University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
Dr. Centivany currently teaches the following graduate-level courses: "Information Ethics" [FIMS 9137], "Information and Media Policy for Social Justice" [FIMS 9336], and “Managing and Working in
Information Organizations” [MLIS 9005]. Dr. Centivany regularly supervises graduate students' research on varied topics including: cybersecurity, platform governance, social media, repair, dark patterns, ethical AI, indigenous archives, scholarly communications and open access, and more.
Dr. Centivany conducts research on technology policy, law, and ethics. Her primary areas of inquiry include: breakdown, repair, and the right to repair movement; scholarly communications, open access, and open source technologies; and participatory policymaking. Dr. Centivany is currently primary investigator of two SSHRC-funded grants on repair: "Copyright, computerization, and the Right to Repair" (IDG), and "Breakdown and Repair in Gaza's Health Care Sector" (NFRF). In 2023, she provided expert testimony before the Canadian House of Commons on two copyright reform bills: C-244 (diagnosis, maintenance, and repair) and Bill C-294 (interoperability). She has appeared on and been quoted by a variety of media including The National, CBC, Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Global News, The Agenda, and others. Dr. Centivany is a founding director of "Starling: Just Technologies, Just Societies" research centre. She also is part of a SSHRC-funded team studying the use of AI to address housing and homelessness (PI: Stark) and co-organized the recently-concluded SSHRC-funded "Big Data at the Margins" series (PI: Hearn) which you may
learn more about here: https://bdam.fims.uwo.ca
