Sarah harris
Sarah is a technologist with a career spanning industry, academic research and teaching. She is passionate about building, teaching and shaping how information and communication technologies are utilized for the benefit of society. Her areas of expertise include entrepreneurship and business, internet regulation, censorship and disinformation, social media, artificial intelligence, user experience design and digital literacy.
Prior to TechCongress, Sarah was Head of Product at a gov-tech startup building communication platforms that help elected offices improve their constituent services. Previously she co-founded an AI startup and, as their VP of Product, led the creation of personalized agents that simplify human planning. Prior, as a Product Manager at Apple, she worked on a variety of consumer apps, including Siri, and led data partnerships that enabled new capabilities while protecting the privacy of over a billion users.
Sarah has a Ph.D. in Media Studies with a focus on digital communication technology. Her research focused on global internet governance and examined how regulation, infrastructure, economic and social factors impact the ways that users can/cannot utilize the internet for learning, working and community building. She spent three years conducting onsite research in Turkey and has additional work and educational experience in Bolivia.
A passionate teacher and Teach for America alum, she has teaching and curriculum design experience at elementary, high school and university levels. Within industry, this passion is reflected in her interests in user experience (UX) design, people management and fostering cross-functional digital literacy.
She holds a Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and an M.S.Ed. from the University of Illinois at Chicago.