Dr. Derrick Cogburn

Seungtae Han

Ph.D. student, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology

Biography

Professor Cogburn is an expert on global information and communication technology and in the use of ICTs for socio-economic development. He is Associate Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service at American University and Visiting Associate Professor of Information at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. His research and teaching interests include the institutional mechanisms for the global governance of ICTs; transnational policy-actor networks and epistemic communities, especially for nongovernmental organizations and global civil society; and the socio-technical infrastructure for geographically distributed collaboration in knowledge work. Dr. Cogburn directs the Center for Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities (Cotelco), an award-winning social science research collaboratory investigating the social and technical factors that influence geographically distributed collaborative knowledge work, particularly between developed and developing countries. Cotelco is an affiliated center of the Burton Blatt Institute, Centers of Innovation on Disability, where Cogburn serves on the Leadership Council.

Currently, his research looks at the role of elite policy conferences in the formation of global ICT policy-actor networks and the use of ICTs by transnational networks. His research teams are also studying the impact of “policy collaboratories” on these policy networks within the World Summit on the Information Society and the epistemic communities that nourish them. To date, Dr. Cogburn has secured almost $5 million as PI or Co-PI, from a wide variety of public and private foundations and agencies.

Professor Cogburn is also a faculty affiliate with the Convergence Center at Syracuse University; a principal and member of the Scientific Committee of the Internet Governance Project; chair of the Communication Committee for the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet); and a faculty member of the Syracuse University Africa Initiative. In addition, Cogburn is an adjunct professor at the International School of Information Management at the University of Mysore in southern India; and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Cogburn is the current president of the Information Technology and Politics section of the American Political Science Association as well as president of the International Communication section of the International Studies Association. Cogburn also serves as CEO of the Praxis Global Group, Inc., a specialized consulting firm organized to provide analysis of global affairs and strategic opportunities driven and facilitated by globalization and information and communication technologies. Praxis also provides mixed-methods research consulting, specializing in evaluation and community-based approaches.