The AlgorihmWatch team continues to grow: new faces 2021
In the last 12 months, the number of AlgorithmWatch team members has more than doubled. We are happy to introduce the new colleagues who joined us at the beginning of 2021. Welcome, Mira, Kerstin, Gregor, Leonie and Jens!
Mira Zimmermann
Mira is studying Cultural Studies and Digital Media at the Leuphana University Lüneburg and joined AlgorithmWatch as an intern in the Outreach and PR department. In her studies, she focuses on social discrimination mechanisms and how they are reflected and reinforced by algorithmic processes. In both academic and private contexts, Mira is interested in the ethics of algorithms, especially with regard to consumer behavior and advertising in digital capitalism. Her wish to make the social impact of algorithms understandable and visible brought her to AlgorithmWatch.
Kerstin Weber-Thum
Kerstin supports AlgorithmWatch in office management, human resources and accounting. She holds a degree in Egyptology and Protestant Theology from Humboldt University Berlin, with a focus on medieval manuscripts from North-East-Africa and their linguistic classification. Before joining AlgorithmWatch, she worked as an office manager for a Berlin based HR startup. She has also been part of the Camino-Workspace evaluating the federal program “Demokratie Leben”, and the pro familia project “biko”.
Gregor Weichbrodt
Gregor Weichbrodt works at AlgorithmWatch as a designer and software developer. He studied communication design at HTW Berlin and enjoys working in organizations that are helpful for civil society and engage with modern technology. His previous employers include Steady and FragDenStaat. Additionally, he is passionate about generative art and literature and is the author of several books.
Leonie Dorn
Leonie Dorn is responsible for PR, outreach, and campaigns at AlgorithmWatch. She has a degree in International Development Studies and has worked in campaigning and online-activism for several civil society organizations. Her focus has been on the influence of digital media on public discourse, especially concerning climate change, global justice, and feminism. Before joining AlgorithmWatch, Leonie worked as a researcher at TU Berlin where she’s also currently completing her Master in Media Studies. Her focus is algorithmic bias, platform capitalism, digital literacy as well as feminist Science and Technology Studies.
Jens Ohlig
Jens is a project manager at AlgorithmWacht for the project SustAIn - Sustainability Index for AI. Before joining AlgorithmWatch, he worked at Wikimedia Germany for eight years. As part of the project Wikidata, he helped build an open source database of collective human knowledge. Before that he was a software developer and actively engaged in hackspaces - open spaces for hackers and people intersted in science, technology and digital art - writing and giving talks on community building und volunteer engagement.