Susan P. Crawford (born 1963) is President Barack Obama's Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy. She is a former Board Member of ICANN and the founder of OneWebDay.

Wired magazine has referred to her as "the most powerful geek close to the president," ^[1] and notes that previous to her work for the Administration, she was a "prolific blogger," as well as a writer on subjects ranging from Net Neutrality to NASA.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Education and career 2.1 Internet activism 2.2 Politics 3 External links 4 References

[edit] Early life

Crawford was born in 1963 and grew up in Santa Monica, where she attended Santa Monica High School, and played violin in the "Samohi" orchestra. According to her own website, she spent most of her time "hanging out in the band room" there, though she still became associated during this period with the intelligentsia known around campus as The Olive Starlight Orchestra (a social group that had nothing whatsoever to do with music). While at Yale, Crawford was the principal violist in the Yale Symphony Orchestra^[2] and continues her daily practice and occasionally performs publicly.^[3]

[edit] Education and career

Crawford holds a B.A. (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and J.D. from Yale University. She served as a law clerk for Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (Washington, D.C.) until the end of 2002, when she left that firm to become a professor.

After first teaching at Cardozo School of Law in NYC, Crawford became a visiting Professor at the University of Michigan Law School in the fall of 2007. After visiting at Yale Law School in the spring of 2008, she was admitted to the faculty at the University of Michigan Law School.^[4]

[edit] Internet activism

Crawford served a member of the Board of Directors for ICANN from 2005-2008 ^[5]. In 2005 she founded OneWebDay - a global celebration of the Internet. She is known as a champion of net neutrality, and has written on many other current policy issues.

[edit] Politics

Crawford and Kevin Werbach served on the Federal Communications Commission Review team in the Obama transition.^[6][7]. In early 2009 Crawford was appointed the President's Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy.^[8]. In October 2009 it was announced that she would step down when her one year sabbatical from the University of Michigan ends in January 2010. ^[9]

[edit] External links

• Susan P. Crawford's blog; articles from before she accepted an executive-branch appointment.
• One Web Day
• Crawford's Official Web Page at the University of Michigan

[edit] References