Contact Tracing

Esta R. Bigler is Director of Cornell University ILR’s Labor and Employment Law Program, the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, and the Cornell Project for Records Assistance. Ms. Bigler uses her extensive background in labor and employment law to convene conferences and forums studying current and emerging legal issues impacting employment, with the goal of influencing legislation and public policy decisions.

A major focus of Ms. Bigler’s work is reducing barriers to employment for people with criminal records, exploring the impact of employment on reducing recidivism, employer attitudes toward hiring people with criminal records, and the collateral consequences of incarceration. To expand this work, she founded the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, which has held national conferences, focus groups, education programs, and direct training, and developed informational websites and brochures.

Helen Nissenbaum is the Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Professor at Cornell Tech and in the Information Science Department at Cornell University. She is also Director of the Digital Life Initiative, which was launched in 2017 at Cornell Tech to explore societal perspectives surrounding the development and application of digital technology, focusing on ethics, policy, politics, and quality of life. Her own research takes an ethical perspective on policy, law, science, and engineering relating to information technology, computing, digital media and data science. Topics have included privacy, trust, accountability, security, and values in technology design. Her books include Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest, with Finn Brunton (MIT Press, 2015) and Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford, 2010).

Grants from the NSF, AFOSR, and the U.S. DHHS-ONC have supported her work. Recipient of the 2014 Barwise Prize of the American Philosophical Association, Nissenbaum has contributed to privacy-enhancing software, including TrackMeNot and AdNauseam.

Nissenbaum holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University and a B.A. (Hons) in philosophy and mathematics from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

JP Pollak is a co-founder and the Chief Architect of The Commons Project, a Senior Researcher in Residence at Cornell Tech, and an Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine. He is currently focused on CommonHealth, the Android platform for people to collect, store, and share their health data. JP builds tools and conducts research related to helping individuals collect health data from real-world settings and combining those with their clinical record for research and care. JP was also the founder of Wellcoin, an award-winning consumer health incentives application, and has built numerous applications in health and life sciences that are widely used in research and business. JP earned a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction and a PhD in Information Science at Cornell University.

Nathaniel Hupert, M.D., is a practicing clinician and public health researcher focusing on healthcare processes and emergency response logistics. For 20 years, he has collaborated with local, state, federal, and international public health officials in advancing clinical and health system preparedness for bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. Dr. Hupert led the development of two U.S. healthcare planning documents and was the founding Director of the Preparedness Modeling Unit at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2008-10); served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the NIGMS Modeling of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) (2012-14); and was a Senior Medical Advisor for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in the office of the DHHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) (2014-15). In addition to his academic position, he is Senior Advisor for both the CDC’s Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections and the DHHS National Healthcare Preparedness Program.