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Research & Programming

Gender & Tech: Addressing Harms and Advancing Rights

About Upcoming Events Past Recordings Project Leads

Overview

The Gender and Tech Talk Series brings together leading scholars, advocates, and practitioners to discuss the intersections of gender, technology, democracy and human rights.

It will critically examine how digital platforms and technologies impact women, queer and gender-diverse individuals while exploring pathways for more inclusive, rights-focused digital governance frameworks.

This online series, co-organized by Yasmin Curzi and Jess Reia, will run monthly and feature two speakers and international perspectives, beginning in April 2025 and ending in December 2025,  with the following dates and topics:

4/25 | Digital Colonialism

5/27 | Data Governance

8/28 | Platform Governance      

9/29 | Technocapitalism and Environmental Justice

10/27 | Data Work and Political Participation

11/24 | Trans-inclusive AI Governance

The discussions will become a report published in early spring 2026.

Upcoming Events

  • Gender & Tech

Gender & Tech: Dis/Misinformation & Political Extremism

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 • 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM EST

Online

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Past Recordings

Gender & Tech: Trans-inclusive Technology Governance

Gender & Tech

Gender & Tech: Data Work & Political Participation

Gender & Tech

Gender & Tech: Technocapitalism & Environmental Justice

Gender & Tech

Gender & Tech: Platform Governance

Gender & Tech

Gender & Tech: Data Governance

Gender & Tech

Gender & Tech: Digital Colonialism

Gender & Tech

See All

Project Leads

Faculty Co-Lead

Jess Reia

Affiliations

Assistant Professor of Data Science, School of Data Science

Bio

Jess Reia is an assistant professor of data science and a faculty co-lead at the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia (UVA). In 2025, Reia was selected as an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. They are also a visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C. Reia works primarily on topics of technology policy and human rights transnationally, being interested in the untold stories in our datasets, citizen-generated data and how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we think about evidence and representation.

A policymaker by training, Reia's research and advocacy agenda has focused on building collaborations with government and civil society organizations in Brazil, Canada, and the U.S. for over a decade, resulting in numerous resources to support policy- and decision-making and academic publications in four languages. Reia is also a public scholar whose writing and interviews were featured in various outlets, including Estadão, Le Devoir and BBC. Before joining UVA, they were appointed Mellon postdoctoral researcher at McGill University, studying the impact of smart-washing and datafication in nocturnal urban spaces and their communities. Reia held a two-year mandate as a member of MTL 24/24's first Night Council in Montreal. Prior to that, they worked at the Center for Technology & Society at FGV Law School in Rio de Janeiro.

Reia's latest book, "Urban Music Governance: What Busking Can Teach Us about Data, Policy and Our Cities" (Intellect/University of Chicago Press, 2025), explores what happens when precarious urban cultural laborers take data collection, laws, and policymaking into their own hands. A transnational exploration of often unseen aspects of urban governance, it examines the intricate limits of legality, data visibility, and resistance from the perspective of those working at the social and regulatory margins of society.

Currently, Reia teaches courses for future data scientists on ethics, governance, and policy. Past courses have included a focus on urban data, digital rights, intellectual property, and research methods.

Full Profile

2024-26 Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Yasmin Curzi

Yasmin Curzi is a postdoctoral research fellow at UVA's Digital Technology for Democracy Lab. Her areas of interest and expertise span human rights law, digital law, gender studies, and digital sociology.

She is a professor at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, having acted as coordinator of its diversity and inclusion program (2023–2024) and as a researcher at its Center for Technology and Society (2019–2024). At FGV, Curzi currently coordinates the "Digital Media and Conflict Prevention" project (2023-25), funded by the European Union. She is also the coordinator of the Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility at the UN Internet Governance Forum and a practicing lawyer, registered in the OAB-RJ.

Previously, she was a data analyst at the Public Policy Department from FGV-Rio, consultant for the NGO Soul Sisters (São Paulo), and correspondent for the Stop Street Harassment NGO in Washington, D.C. She has also consulted for international organizations including the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, Chayn and End CyberAbuse, and InternetLab/Revista Azmina for the development of the MonitorA (an observatory of political and electoral violence against candidates on social networks).

Curzi has a PhD in sociology from the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the Rio de Janeiro State University, a master's degree in social sciences from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and two bachelor's degrees from FGV-Rio—one in law and one in social sciences, including an academic exchange period at the Université Sorbonne Paris-IV.

Full Profile

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