Hi, I’m Sebastian.

Trained in social science at Oxford and information technology at the University of Toronto, my background blends together an interdisciplinary study of the internet with the technical foundation to design and build responsible technologies. I currently work as a researcher and software engineer for metaLAB, a digital humanities initiative at Harvard University. I also lead engineering for the AI Pedagogy Project, and frequently collaborate with the Data Nutrition Project and research teams at universities around the world.

My research started with disentangling the complex systems that act upon people: surveillance infrastructure, disinformation networks, and predictive policing tools that watch, sort, and control the public. I published a peer-reviewed paper examining the legal and policy mechanisms supporting mass surveillance, co-authored a policy report on the digital disinformation strategies of authoritarian empires, and wrote my MSc thesis on the ways activists use physical and digital design to resist algorithmic policing technologies. This research taught me how design decisions encode power and bias, while considering who stands to gain and who is harmed by these systems.

Now, I bring that lens to how I design and build technology that empowers people to learn, reflect, and grow. As the lead engineer of the AI Pedagogy Project, I build interactive resources that help educators consider AI’s role in their classrooms. Previously, I built a tool that helps educators reflect on their teaching and learning practice and created a repository for open educational resources on pedagogical failure.