UC Digital Investigations Network

The University of California Digital Investigations Network (UC Network) is a research consortium across three campuses — UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and UCLA — training diverse and interdisciplinary cohorts of students in digital open source investigation methodologies to monitor, document, and seek accountability for human rights crises in the United States and around the world. Co-founded in 2020 by PI Sylvanna Falcón (LALS/UCSC), Prof. Alexa Koenig (UC Berkeley), and Prof. Jess Peake (UCLA), the UC Network is training and mentoring the next generation of human rights investigators on how to research and document grave social injustices using freely available information online, and drawing from students’ interdisciplinary training in the humanities, humanistic social sciences, journalism, and the law. This unparalleled learning experience in an academic setting equips students with an increasingly necessary skill set in the contemporary, interconnected workforce and positions them competitively for jobs in the tech industry, journalism, human rights advocacy, investigations and justice fields.