# Joan Donovan

joan donovan is an American social scientist faculty member at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, affiliate at Data and Society, and Director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.Donovan's expertise is in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns, and in January 2020, she was called to testify at the Hearing on "Americans at Risk: Manipulation and Deception in the Digital Age" at Congress's Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. == Biography == Donovan earned her PhD in Sociology and Science Studies from the University of California San Diego, and was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Society and Genetics at UCLA where her expertise was social movements, technology, and white supremacist's use of DNA ancestry tests. She later held the role of Research Lead for the Media Manipulation Initiative at Data and Society, and mapped how interest groups, governments, political operatives, corporations, and others use the internet and media to disrupt social institutions.