information futures lab

fellows program

The Information Futures Fellowship is an opportunity for practitioners in public health, healthcare, community organizations, media, policy, design and other fields who are actively responding to the ongoing information crisis at the community level. The fellowship fosters creative problem solving and connects fellows’ professional and lived experiences with the research, resources, and network necessary to develop innovative yet practical solutions.

Meet our 2024 Information Futures Visiting Fellows

Federico Germani

Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine (IBME)
Zurich, Switzerland

Evelyn Pérez-Verdía

Community leader and founder of We Are Más Miami, Florida

Nicolás Ríos

Director of Audience & Community, Documented New York metropolitan area

Alicia Stewart

Media entrepreneur, speaker and journalist
Chicago, Illinois

Brown University’s Information Futures Lab Introduces 2024 Visiting Fellows

Apr 25, 2024 | For Immediate Release, IFL fellows

The Information Futures Lab welcomes leaders in community-based journalism, tech entrepreneurship, communication, and infodemics research to its 2024 Visiting Fellows cohort, aiming to address urgent information challenges with innovative projects.

Fellowship Updates

2023 Information Futures Lab Fellows Pilot Eight Solutions to Address Information Crisis

December 7, 2023 — Our first class of Information Futures Lab (IFL) Fellows at Brown University’s School of Public Health has debuted eight community-driven, innovative solutions to improve information ecosystems. From the mountains of western North Carolina, to the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand, the fellows’ projects are locally-developed and center the cultural realities of the communities they serve. Fellows are making an impact, with positive outcomes from projects so far including more than 40 communities across Nigeria connected with culturally appropriate health information, increased social media literacy among aspiring school-age content creators in Great Britain, and support for the Black community in East Oakland, Calif., to better manage diabetes. Listen in as the fellows tell passionate stories of their communities and what they learned working to create a better future for our information spaces.

Kelsey Scott: Finding Harmony in Health: A Tale of Culturally Tailored Diabetes Care

Different communities face unique information challenges, and one size fits all solutions do not work. No one understands communities and their information needs better than those living and working amongst them. IFL Fellow Kelsey Scott from the Roots Community Health Center in California, explains the importance of culturally informed communication in her HIPHOP project, which is designed to improve access to healthcare information and diabetes management tools in the Black community in East Oakland.

Lam Thuy Vo: Misinformation and the Unmet Information Needs of Vietnamese Americans

Through locally-developed solutions, communities can be empowered to effectively access, create, and understand information that is crucial to their wellbeing. As IFL Fellow Lam Thuy Vo explains, understanding how communities interact with content allows for the scaling of ideas to improve equity in information access. Her work within the Vietnamese community of Oakland, California, highlights some unique hurdles this community is facing in accessing quality information on the pandemic and other crucial current events.

Adrienne Ammerman: Arclet: Improving Public Health by Innovating Health Communications

Modern problems require modern solutions. Across the country and around the globe, communities know what works best for them and while health communications are often distributed by local health authorities, a community-tailored approach to health information is the key to alleviating health inequities. IFL Fellow Adrienne Ammerman’s Arclet platform provides a means to distill, test, and distribute effective health communications by communities, for communities.

Chris Chukwunyere: Bridging Health Information Gaps: Youth-Led Solutions in Nigeria

In communities worldwide, effective leaders, influencers, and communicators help to keep their neighbors informed. Leveraging their credibility and reach helps to keep communities’ information ecosystems healthy. IFL Fellow Chris Chukwunyere channeled the power and influence of Nigerian youth by teaching them how to recognize and meet information needs on a micro-local level, increasing the flow of good health information throughout the country.

Sophia Smith Galer: The Creator Literacy Initiative

The ways in which people get their information are constantly evolving. Solutions to modern information challenges need to adapt to these evolutions and IFL Fellow Sophia Smith Galer is rethinking who develops and delivers media literacy lessons for today’s platforms. Centering those who actually create content for these platforms, her Creator Literacy Initiative helps youth understand and navigate the realities of life and work as a content creator.

Kelly Perry: The Clean Lantern

Tackling health and information challenges requires input from multiple stakeholders. Solutions, like IFL Fellow Kelly Perry’s Clean Lantern project, work best when they center on and elevate the experiences and realities of communities. In her efforts through the Clean Lantern project to uplift the voices of those most impacted by poor air quality in two of Thailand’s largest cities, IFL Fellow Kelly Perry highlighted the stories of people from various walks of life who are all working towards the common goal of a future with cleaner air.

Mark Scott: A plan to fix social media

With the passage of the Digital Services Act by the European Commission, which promises to make data from tech companies more accessible, Mark used his fellowship to investigate the different types of data stakeholders would need. The goal of the project was to help inform policymakers who are working on defining how data sharing would work.

Here are two of Mark’s Politico newletters informed by his fellowship work:
Digital Bridge: Global Twitter
I have a plan to fix social media

Elisabeth Wilhelm: Understanding Community Information Needs Through Stories

How does the modern information environment affect specific communities and their health? How can we do better in meeting people’s information needs? One way way to answer these questions is through people’s experiences and stories. In her fellowship project, Elisabeth Wilhelm, is a senior social and behavior change technical advisor, developed a novel, participatory methodology to capture, analyze and make actionable the experiences of community members in navigating information ecosystems. After working with a global community of Infodemics managers, she developed a guide, Understanding community information needs through stories, for public health professionals, civil society organizations, community members, students and researchers who want to center people’s voices in policies and programs serving communities. You can explore the guide here: https://communitystoriesguide.org/

About the Information Futures Fellowship

The Information Futures Fellowship empowers practitioners to develop innovative approaches to addressing intersecting information challenges present in contemporary information ecosystems. As leaders in their fields and communities, those on the front lines are most familiar with how challenges such as chaotic information environments, an overabundance of information, misleading information and information inequities are impacting people and communities, and what might work to develop actionable, equitable solutions. The fellowship provides access to training, support, and interdisciplinary research expertise in the form of partnerships and mentorship.

Application Timeline
Applications for IFl fellowships are closed. You can subscribe to our newsletter and social media for updates on timelines.