Dr. Derrick L. Cogburn, Executive Director, American University/Syracuse University

Dr. Derrick L. Cogburn is an expert on global governance, transnational NGOs, information and communication technology, and the use of ICTs for socio-economic development.  His research and teaching interests include: global information and communication technology and socio-economic development; institutional mechanisms for global governance of ICTs; transnational policy networks and epistemic communities; and the socio-technical infrastructure for geographically distributed collaboration in knowledge work.He is the editor of the Palgrave Macmillan book series on Information Technology and Global Governance. He holds a joint faculty appointment between American University, where he is Associate Professor of International Relations in the International Communication Program in the School of International Service and Syracuse University, where he is Associate Professor of Information in the School of Information Studies. He also directs a joint research center between AU and SU called the “Collaboration Laboratory” the Center for Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities (COTELCO), an award-winning social science research collaboratory investigating the social and technical factors that influence geographically distributed collaborative knowledge work, particularly between developed and developing countries.  COTELCO is an affiliated center of the Burton Blatt Institute, Centers of Innovation on Disability, where Cogburn serves on the Leadership Council. Dr. Cogburn also serves as Executive Director of the Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP) funded by the Nippon Foundation of Japan. He has served as principal investigator/project director on almost $3 million of externally funded research, and a total of almost $18 million overall (including co-principal investigator/investigator awards), including substantial funding from the National Science Foundation, US Department of Education, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Cisco Systems, Microsoft Research, and J.P. Morgan Chase. Previously, Dr. Cogburn was on the faculty at the School of Information at the University of Michigan, and the Executive Director of GIIC Africa for the Global Information Infrastructure Commission. His research and teaching interests include the institutional mechanisms for the global governance of ICTs; transnational policy-actor networks and epistemic communities, especially for nongovernmental organizations and global civil society; and the socio-technical infrastructure for geographically distributed collaboration in knowledge work.  Currently, his research looks at the role of elite policy conferences in the formation of global ICT policy-actor networks and the use of ICTs by transnational networks. His research teams are also studying the impact of “policy collaboratories” on these policy networks within the World Summit on the Information Society and the epistemic communities that nourish them. To date, Dr. Cogburn has secured almost $5 million as PI or Co-PI, from a wide variety of public and private foundations and agencies.  He has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles, two edited books, seven book chapters, over 31 peer-reviewed conference proceedings, 21 working papers and public scholarship, and has delivered over 68 invited lectures and conference presentations nationally and 37 internationally.

Cogburn is the past president of the Information Technology and Politics section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) as well as past president of the International Communication section of the International Studies Association (ISA). Professor Cogburn is also a principal and member of the Scientific Committee of the Internet Governance Project; founding board member and former Vice Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet); and a faculty member of the Syracuse University Africa Initiative. In addition, Cogburn has served as an adjunct professor at the International School of Information Management at the University of Mysore in southern India; and as adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He serves or has served in high-level appointed international positions with the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID), the World Bank, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).  He also serves on the Committee of Visitors for the National Science Foundation, Office of Cyberinfrastructure.

Professor Cogburn received his Ph.D. in political science (International Relations, Political Economy, and Comparative Politics) from Howard University in 1996, where he was a W.K. Kellogg doctoral fellow at the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center. He also received his MA in political science (Comparative Politics Africa, Political Economy) from Howard University in 1994, and his BA in history (Ancient Near Eastern and Africa)/political science (International Relations) from the University of Oklahoma in 1992.