Announcing our Second Cohort of Fellows

Innovative technologists and engineers make up the talented cohort of fellows who will learn how to shape and advocate technology policy

San Francisco, CA & Washington, DC, January 8, 2020 — The Aspen Tech Policy Hub announced its second cohort of Incubator Fellows, who will focus on how to advocate for solutions to a wide range of vital technology policy issues. The group of leading technologists and engineers will undergo intensive training to learn the policy process and develop toolkits to explain and advocate technology policy issues.

The Incubator Fellows join the Aspen Tech Policy Hub from Google, Facebook, Salesforce, the U.S. government, state and local governments, and other public, private and nonprofit ventures across the United States.

“I’m thrilled to welcome our second cohort of fellows,” said Betsy Cooper, founding director of the Aspen Tech Policy Hub. “The winter 2020 fellows embody the program’s entrepreneurial public service mission and I look forward to watching them work together to grow and develop innovative ideas at the intersection of technology and policy.”

The winter 2020 Aspen Tech Policy Hub fellows include:

  • Elizabeth Allendorf, artificial intelligence engineer at Northrop Grumman on the cutting edge of natural language processing.
  • Jessica Cole, head of innovation and economic development for the City of Walnut Creek, California; builder of civic infrastructure.
  • Liv Erickson, open source engineer at Mozilla; virtual and augmented reality software application developer building shared 3D environments.
  • Nidhi Hebbar, globe-trotting educational technologist enabling creative and relevant modes of learning.
  • Madison Jacobs, editor-in-chief at Google for Startups; technology marketing expert and startup mentor.
  • Cecilia Donnelly Krum, developer at the Minnesota Senate; open source expert with a passion for humanitarian technology.
  • Mariah Lichtenstern, entrepreneur at the intersection of technology, entertainment, and venture capital to promote social, economic and environmental impact.
  • Anjana Rajan, technology entrepreneur passionate about applying cryptography to social justice issues; Y Combinator alumna.
  • Alexander (RoRo) Romero, Hack the Pentagon technical lead and digital services expert at the Defense Digital Service.
  • Matthew Schroeder, security engineer at Salesforce; previously helped secure Facebook, Gap Inc., Visa and more.
  • Matt Sievers military veteran who taught and developed curriculum for the U.S. Air Force Academy computer and cyber science programs.
  • Samara Trilling, software engineer researching machine learning fairness; worked to close the digital divide and democratize new reporting at Google.
  • Matthew Volk, senior engineer at Facebook working on misinformation and content moderation; human rights activist.
  • Amy J. Wilson, managing director at cyber startup accelerator MACH37; civic technology leader and author.
  • Raylene Yung, engineer who led payment, product and expansion teams at Stripe and Facebook efforts on privacy, content creation and News Feed.

The new class of Incubator Fellows will be in residence from January to mid-March 2020. During their residency, fellows will produce at least one practical policy output — for instance, mock legislation, toolkits for policymakers, white papers, op-eds, or an app—and will ‘exit’ the incubator by presenting their ideas to a stakeholder with decision-making authority over that issue.


The fellows published recommendations that federal agencies centralize and redesign reporting systems. They also built and tested a working prototype of a new reporting form, and shared these materials with relevant nonprofits and government agencies.

To see the full press release, see: Aspen Tech Policy Hub Announces Second Cohort of Fellows.