Introducing the new CITP Non-Resident Technology Fellows 2026 Cohort

The Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) Non-Resident Technology Fellows Program is a new initiative that connects experienced technologists to address critical public interest challenges. The inaugural cohort brings together a diverse network of experts with the goal of providing technical expertise to state and local governments tasked with regulating the use of technology. You can read more about the program on the CITP website.

Recently, two of the fellows – Varun Gadh and Adam Pickersgill – along with CITP’s Mihir Kshirsagar, Stephanie T. Nguyen, a senior fellow at Columbia Law School, and Patrick Yurky of the Institute for Technology Law & Policy at Georgetown Law, authored Digital Fingerprints: A Technical Summary. This brief outlines the historical development of digital fingerprints and their current use, and explains how digital fingerprints collect characteristics from user devices to create a unique (or near-unique) identifier, often without the user’s knowledge or ability to opt-out. The technical assignment is now available on CITP’s website.

2026 CITP Non-Residential Technology Fellows Bios:

Varun Gadh

Varun Gadh is a technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project and a co-founder of the CITP Technology Fellows Program. Previously, he was a technologist at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he served as lead technology or technology policy expert in more than 25 investigations and lawsuits. He also drafted regulations involving behavioral science, artificial intelligence and contract terms and conditions. Earlier in his career, he designed and built technology at Capital One, McMaster-Carr and Honda Research; Through this work, he was awarded nine patents.

Amanda Lenhart

Amanda Lenhart is senior fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at the Sesame Workshop and was previously head of research at Common Sense Media. She has spent more than 25 years studying how teenagers, families and children navigate the digital landscape, including recent work on social media and youth mental health, and generative AI use among adolescents and parents. She previously led research at the Pew Research Center for 16 years, was program director at Data & Society, and deputy director of the Better Life Lab at New America.

Adam Pickersgill

Adam Pickersgill is a technologist with a software engineering and product management background. He served at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and is Executive Director at the Civic Software Initiative, where he works to help nonprofits effectively adopt technology. His experience spans Oracle, Microsoft and civic technology.

Cory Scott

Cory Scott is Executive Director of Cleveland State University’s Center for Cyber ​​Security and Privacy Protection and Deputy Regional Chief for the Ohio Cyber ​​​​​​​​​​​Reserve. He provides testimony to Ohio legislators on AI and cybersecurity policy, researches the effectiveness of state cybersecurity mandates and cyber insurance for political subdivisions, and has led the development of a baseline cybersecurity program now adopted by more than 350 local government entities. He previously held security and privacy leadership roles at Google, LinkedIn and Confluent, and conducted vulnerability research at @stake and Matasano Security.

Faiz Surani

Faiz Surani is a co-founder and CTO of Caldera PBC and was previously a research associate and data scientist at Stanford RegLab, where her work focused on building AI systems for the public sector. His projects include developing AI systems for government benefit programs, automating discriminatory covenant detection in property records, and evaluating AI legal research tools. He previously worked as a machine learning researcher at Google’s neural semantic analysis team.

Christine Tsang

Christine Tsang is co-founder and CEO of Caldera PBC and was previously the founding executive director of the Stanford Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab), which works with federal, state, and local agencies to use AI to modernize government. She has served on the leadership team of several venture-backed ventures, clerked for California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, and was a Fulbright Scholar in China. She has a JD from Yale Law School.