Charles Berret
Assistant Professor
University of British Columbia
School of Journalism
6388 Crescent Road
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z3
Education
2011-18 | Columbia University, New York, US. Ph.D. in Communications. Dissertation: “The Cultural Contradictions of Cryptography.” Advisor: Michael Schudson. |
2009-10 | Northwestern University, Evanston, US. M.S. in Journalism. |
2003-07 | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US. B.A. in Philosophy. High Honors, Phi Beta Kappa Society. |
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Reports and Chapters
Conference Papers
2017 | “Collecting Randomness for the Vernam System: The Cryptographic Use of Noise at Bell Labs.” Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). |
2016 | “Teaching Data and Computational Journalism: Lessons from a Nationwide Study of Journalism Education.” (with Cheryl Phillips) Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). |
2016 | “On the Bubble: An Internet Scale Investigation into Location-Based Algorithmic Filtering of Political Content.” (with Rebecca Weiss) International Communication Association (ICA). |
2015 | “Understanding SecureDrop: Information Security and Emerging Journalistic Platforms.” Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). |
2013 | “The Quantitative Turn in the History of Technology.” (with Kevin Gotkin) Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). |
2012 | “The Techniques and Aesthetics of Phototypesetting.” Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). |
Invited Talks, Panels, and Guest Lectures
2017 | “Whistleblowing in the Digital Newsroom: How Wikileaks and Edward Snowden Prepared Journalists for the Age of Trump.” – Public lecture to begin my term as writer-in-residence in the English department of Yeshiva University. |
2017 | “Scraping Text and Analyzing Social Media.” – Two guest lectures (with Alexandre Goncalves) in the core class for investigative journalism students at Columbia. |
2016 | “Data, Computation, and Journalism: Skills to Innovate in a Changing Media Landscape.” – Colloquium talk at the Hariri Institute for Computational Science & Engineering, Boston University. |
2016 | “Understanding SecureDrop: An Emerging Tool for Secure Digital Whistleblowing.” – Report launch at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia. |
2014 | “Mesh Nets, Journalism, and the Umbrella Protest in Hong Kong.” – Part of the “Journalism After Snowden” series at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia. |
2012 | “Media Analysis and Social Pedagogy.” – Keynote panel (with Madiha Tahir, Jonah Bossewitch, and Travis Mushett) at the Technology and Education Symposium, American University in Cairo. |
Journalism and Book Reviews
Grants
2015 | Research Grant ($30,000) – Tow Center for Digital Journalism – Project: One-year study of how journalists had begun to use encrypted communication tools for newsgathering, with particular emphasis on the whistleblowing platform SecureDrop. Research methods combined in-depth interviews with original data scraped from the web. |
2014 | Magic Grant ($120,000) – Brown Institute for Media Innovation. – Project: SearchLight, a tool to help investigative journalists report on algorithmic bias in search engines. Initially written in Ruby, then ported to Python. Available as free/open-source software. |
Fellowships, Scholarships, and Awards
2017-18 | Writer-in-Residence, Yeshiva University, English Department. |
2016-18 | Fellow, Brown Institute for Media Innovation. |
2015-16 | Research Fellow, Tow Center for Digital Journalism. |
2011-14 | Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University. |
2007 | Phi Beta Kappa, University of Michigan. |
2004-07 | James B. Angell Scholar, University of Michigan. |
Courses Taught
2018 | “Data Visualization.” UBC School of Journalism. |
2018 | “Journalism Ethics and Leadership.” UBC School of Journalism. |
2018 | “Integrated Journalism.” UBC School of Journalism. |
2018 | Topics in Journalism: The Digital Newsroom. Yeshiva College, Department of English. |
Workshops and Instructional Sessions
2017 | “Scraping Data From the Web: Free Resources For Storytellers.” – Workshop for “Storytelling with Data” at Boston University. |
2016 | “Brown Institute Base Camp.” – Workshop to help interdisciplinary teams of journalists from Columbia and engineers from Stanford develop ideas for media innovation projects. |
2016 | “Teaching Algorithmic Transparency.” – AEJMC preconference workshop. |
2016 | “Sensors for Journalism.” – Assisted Mark Hansen and Tom Igoe (one of the inventors of the Arduino platform) with two workshops at Columbia Journalism School on physical computing as a reporting method. |
2014 | “Encryption for Journalists.” – Guest lecture with Kate Fink at Pace University. |
Graduate Teaching Assistance
2014 | “Journalistic Algorithms.” Columbia University. Instructors: Dr. Chris Wiggins and Jonathan Soma. |
2014 | “Foundations of Computing.” Columbia University. Instructors: Dr. Dennis Tenen and Jonathan Soma. |
2014 | “Journalistic Computation.” Columbia University. Instructor: Dr. Mark Hansen. |
2013 | “History of Journalism.” Columbia University. Instructors: Dr. Andie Tucher and Dr. Richard R. John. |
2013 | “Journalism and the Law.” Columbia University. Instructor: John Zucker. |
2012 | “Business of Journalism.” Columbia University. Instructors: Dr. Adam Klein and Martin Nisenholtz. |
Research Assistance
2014 | Dr. Michael Schudson (Columbia Journalism). – Assisted with archival research for the book The Rise of the Right to Know, a history of the transparency ideal in the United States. |
2013 | Dr. Matthew L. Jones (Columbia History). – Assisted with research on the origin of the methodological assumptions underlying data science and the concurrent rise of mass surveillance in the United States. |
2012 | C.W. Anderson (CUNY), Emily Bell (Columbia), and Clay Shirky (NYU). – Coordinated research and assisted with interviews for Post-Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present, a study by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. |
Academic Service
2017 | Schoolwide Self-Study – Columbia Journalism School. – I was the primary author of a 130-page report assessing the state of the Journalism School for an official report to the Provost of Columbia University. |
2017 | Conference Planner – “Sneakercon” at the Brown Institute. – I was one of the principle organizers of the first Sneakercon, a forum to reexamine offline networks (also known as “sneakernets”) that serve as local, decentralized alternatives to the internet. |
2015-16 | Curriculum Development – M.S. degree in Data Journalism, Columbia. – I wrote the curriculum, syllabi, and the official proposal for a new, graduate-level program focused on finding and telling stories using data, computation, and emerging technologies. |
2014 | System Administrator – Lede Program, Columbia. – Using AWS and SaltStack, I provisioned and maintained twenty virtual servers, one for each student in the “Lede,” a postbaccalaureate program in data science and computational reporting methods. |
2012-13 | Colloquium Coordinator – Columbia Communications Program. – Arranged visits from nineteen speakers over the course of three semesters covering a range of topics in the historical, sociological, and critical study of media, journalism, and communications. |
Professional Memberships
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Society for the History of Technology (SHOT).
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Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).
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International Communication Association (ICA).
Technical Skills
Code | Python, Bash, R, JavaScript. Working knowledge of Ruby, PHP, Java, Processing, C, C++ and creative libraries like D3, Cinder, and OpenFrameworks. |
Markup | HTML, CSS, XML, Markdown, Pandoc, LaTeX. |
Dev | Git, Docker, Vagrant. |
SysAdmin | GNU/Linux/Unix OS, Apache, Nginx, SSL, Ansible, SaltStack. |
Database | SQL, Postgres, Mongo. |
CMS | WordPress, Omeka, Jekyll. |
Hardware | Physical computing, sensors, basic electrical prototyping, modular synthesis. |
Journalism, Writing, and Editing Experience
2017– | Contributing Writer, Google Fonts and Google Design, New York, US. |
2016– | Contributing Writer, Columbia Journalism Review, New York, US. |
2010-11 | Book Review Editor, TriQuarterly literary journal, Chicago, US. |
2007-08 | Assistant Editor, Egypt Today magazine, Cairo, Egypt. |
Languages
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English (Native)
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German (Advanced Written, Basic Spoken)
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French (Basic Written)
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Arabic (Basic Spoken)
References
Available on request.
Last Updated: September 25, 2018.