Alexa Koenig, PhD, JD, is Co-Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center (winner of the 2015 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions), Director of HRC’s Investigations Program, and an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches classes that focus on the intersection of emerging technologies and human rights. She also co-teaches a class on open source investigative reporting at Berkeley Journalism. Alexa co-founded the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab, which trains students and professionals to use social media and other digital open source content to strengthen human rights research, reporting, and accountability. Alexa is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, a member of the Technology Advisory Board for the Innovation Lab at Human Rights First, an advisory board member of Physicians for Human Rights, and a co-founder of the University of California Network on Human Rights Fact-Finding. She previously helped establish and co-chaired the Technology Advisory Board of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court; co-chaired the International Bar Association's Human Rights Law Committee; and was a member of the University of California’s Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, for which she co-chaired the Human Resources subcommittee. Alexa has been honored with several awards for her work, including the United Nations Association-SF’s Global Human Rights Award, UC Berkeley’s Mark Bingham Award for Excellence, and the Eleanor Swift Award for Public Service. She has also been honored with a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center (2019), with multiple writing residencies at Mesa Refuge, as a Woman Inspiring Change by Harvard’s Women’s Law Association (2020), and as one of “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics” by Women in AI Ethics (2022). She conceived of and directed development of the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations and has conducted trainings on online open source investigations at organizations around the world. Alexa has a BA from UCLA in World Arts and Cultures summa cum laude, a JD from the University of San Francisco with a specialization in cyberlaw and intellectual property magna cum laude, and both an MA and a PhD from UC Berkeley’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program with honors.
Alexa Koenig
Co-Faculty Director
Director, Investigations Program
