We're building an ecosystem.

Together we're pushing boundaries to reimagine collaborative frameworks.

Plurality Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to fostering human cooperation and progress. We serve as a hub for academics, industry researchers, practitioners, and leaders from both civil and governmental sectors, all of whom are pushing boundaries to reimagine collaborative frameworks.

Our mission is to support and nurture the emerging field of plurality. We facilitate this through hosting both in-person and online events, supporting partner initiatives, sharing pivotal news and research updates, and offering a centralized job and opportunity portal to enhance ecosystem accessibility.

We aim to unify the expertise of stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds—from AI-enhanced democracy, Web3's altruistic potential, to peacekeeping research and cultural bridge-building initiatives.

We strive to operate in alignment with the values of the ecosystem we support, uplifting a variety of approaches and perspectives and fostering connections across the community we serve.

OUR LEADERSHIP

The Steering Committee

Our steering committee provides us with extensive experience and insight across the ecosystem, and helps to shape the overall vision for our work.

Audrey Tang

Audrey Tang Feng is a Taiwanese free software programmer and was the inaugural Minister of Digital Affairs of the Republic of China. They voluntarily ended their tenure in May 2024 to embark on a global tour to promote plurality and the ideas that have flourished in Taiwan. They are also known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin.

Former Minister of Digital Affairs

Taiwan

Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen is a James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy. She is also a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, tech ethicist, distinguished author, and mom.

Political Science

Harvard University

Glen Weyl

Glen Weyl is a co-founder and the Chair of Plurality Institute, the Research Lead of Microsoft Research's Plural Technology Collaboratory, Founder of RadicalxChange Foundation, and co-author of Radical Markets and Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy. He was Valedictorian of Princeton University in 2007, received his PhD in economics from the same in 2008, was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and has taught economics at University of Chicago, Princeton, Harvard and Yale.

Economics

Microsoft Research

Lisa Schirch

Lisa Schirch has 30 years of experience in peacebuilding research, policy advocacy, practice, and teaching. A political scientist by training, she earned her Ph.D. in 1989 from George Mason University. She is a University of Notre Dame Professor of Peacebuilding and Technology, Director of the Peacetech and Polarization Lab, Co-Chair of the Council on Technology and Social Cohesion, and Research Fellow of the Toda Peace Institute.

Peace Studies

Notre Dame

Michael Jordan

Michael I. Jordan is the Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests bridge the computational, statistical, cognitive, biological and social sciences.

Computer Science

UC Berkeley

WE'RE AWESOME

Our Team

We support the latest work in collective intelligence, deliberative democracy, tech for social inclusion and more.

THE ARCHIVE

Amina Vinson

Amina is a Research Assistant at Plurality Institute. She's also a Human-Computer Interaction Master's Candidate at UC Santa Cruz and Head of User Engagement at Harvard i-Lab's MintStars. She previously served as a Board Member of TAMPEP EU, the European Network for the Promotion of Rights and Health among Migrant Sex Workers. Her interests include social computing, documentaries, science fiction, the creator economy and Japanese pop culture.

Research Assistant

David Bloomin

David is the Special Projects lead at Plurality Institute. With over 20 years in software engineering, he has helped shape large-scale infrastructure and AI projects at early-stage Google, Facebook, and Asana. Now he delves into multi-agent reinforcement learning and collective intelligence-inspired AI. He co-founded Plurality Institute to advance collective intelligence research. His work blends practical engineering with a quest to explore AI's broader potential.

Co-Founder & Special Projects

Firen Forrest

Firen is the chief of staff at Plurality Institute. She is also the President of Ignite Talks, a global public speaking community. Previously she was a Project Manager at Sentz, an open-source blockchain-based cash app inside of Signal. She was the Founder and CEO of Nightingale Birth Center, a women’s health clinic. She holds an MBA in Global Business with a specialization in Entrepreneurship.

Chief of Staff

Isaac T. Levine

Isaac is a Research Assistant at Plurality Institute. He holds an M.A. in China Studies from Peking University and a B.A. in Political Economy from UC Berkeley. Previously, he’s worked in strategy consulting and user experience research, and conducts research on Chinese governance of critical technologies. He's fluent in Mandarin Chinese. His interests include collaborative governance, epistemology, machine learning, and music production.

Research Assistant

Jeffrey Fossett

Jeff is a Research Lead at Plurality Institute and a PhD student at Harvard Business School, where he conducts research in the economics of digitization and technology governance. He has academic and professional background in statistics, science & technology studies (STS), and technology policy. Previously, he has been involved at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and worked as a Data Scientist at Airbnb.

Research Lead

Rose Bloomin

Rose is the Executive Director of Plurality Institute. She also serves as the Board President of homeless service nonprofit Community Forward SF. Her previous work includes: Co-founder and CEO of HandUp.org which has raised $7.44M for people experiencing poverty in the US; Special Projects at intelligent robotics startup Vicarious PBC including AI ethics and workforce development research; founding CEO of GiveCrypto.org; and Data Manager for Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Rose was listed in the Top 100 People in Tech by Business Insider.

Co-Founder & Executive Director

We're in good company