Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Based at Cornell University, the Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) is a research organization whose vision is to advance a world where digital power is guided by evidence and accountable to the public. Its mission is to work alongside the public through industry-independent citizen science to test social impacts of digital technologies and discover effective ideas for change. CAT Lab co-creates industry-independent citizen science with communities. It uses two pathways to identify and design studies. Its community pathway organizes international summits to collectively generate research ideas and develop long-term experiments that serve practical needs while advancing science and policy. For emergent issues not yet connected to communities, CAT Lab uses a deductive pathway, where it takes on complex questions, identifies public concerns about digital harms, tests their prevalence, evaluates solutions, and brings findings to communities and stakeholders for further study. Both pathways actively seek to center leaders from historically marginalized communities and users within them. The organization publishes a mix of scholarly articles, white papers, and policy briefings. In addition, CAT Lab develops and maintains novel software to coordinate interventions and observe millions of data points across online platforms with community consent. The award provides flexible support to CAT Lab.

The Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) at Cornell University seeks to advance a world where digital power is guided by evidence and accountability. It undertakes industry-independent research with internet-based communities to study the effects of technology on society and test ideas for changing digital spaces for the better to serve the public interest. Communities bring their problems, deep knowledge, and desire for change and CAT Lab, in turn, offers its expertise in scientific research and a software platform for coordinating citizen behavioral science. The award provides flexible support to CAT Lab as it continues to undertake research in a range of areas such as studying influencing algorithms and social dynamics that amplify racism and sexism on technology platforms. Results from CAT Lab’s research are published in a variety of ways including public reports designed to inform policy decisions by communities, governments and technology platforms; academic working papers that are submitted for peer review; academic journal articles; and, workshop and training materials.