Dr. Laura DeNardis is a professor of Communication Studies at American University in Washington, DC. She is a globally recognized Internet governance scholar whose research addresses Internet policy and technical design issues related to innovation and freedom of expression online. Her books include Opening Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability (MIT Press 2011); Protocol Politics: The Globalization of Internet Governance (MIT Press 2009); Information Technology in Theory (Thompson 2007 with Pelin Aksoy); and a forthcoming Yale University Press book on Global Internet Governance. She is an affiliated Fellow of the Yale Information Society Project and the Vice Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet). DeNardis earned a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Tech, an MEng from Cornell University, an AB in Engineering Science from Dartmouth College, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from Yale Law School.