Katy Glenn Bass

Katy Glenn Bass

Katy Glenn Bass is the research director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. She is responsible for conceptualizing and executing all of the Institute’s research initiatives, including the production of scholarship and research materials, the organization of conferences and symposia, and the Institute’s Visiting Research Scholars program.

Glenn Bass has organized eight major symposia in partnership with the Institute’s visiting scholars. These include “Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms,” “Regardless of Frontiers: The First Amendment and the Exchange of Ideas Across Borders,” “Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society,” “Lies, Free Speech, and the Law,” and “Data and Democracy.”  The research program’s events bring together scholars and experts in law, computer science, economics, information studies, journalism, political science, philosophy, and other disciplines. To date, the research program’s efforts have produced more than 60 original essays reflecting on the intersection of public and private power, the shaping of online public discourse, and the protection of the right to self-government in the internet age.  

Prior to joining the Institute, Glenn Bass worked at PEN America, where she supervised the production of reports analyzing free expression issues, including the lack of protections for national security whistleblowers, attacks on journalists covering the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, the impact of mass surveillance on online speech, and other topics. She has also taught at NYU Law’s Center for Constitutional Transitions and at the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham Law School. She holds a B.A. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she received the Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award.