Who is Madeleine Daepp?

Dr. Madeleine I. G. Daepp is a civic technologist and Research Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), where she leads research on generative AI and its consequences for elections, public discourse, and the institutions that hold democracies together. She is on civic leave from Microsoft Research, where she initiated and leads the AI + Democracy research agenda. Dr. Daepp holds a PhD in Urban + Regional Planning from MIT.

What does Madeleine Daepp work on?

Dr. Daepp's current research at CDT focuses on how generative AI is reshaping democracy on its global frontlines — and on what civil society can build with AI, not just defend against. Her work draws on 70+ interviews with researchers, journalists, and democracy defenders in Taiwan, India, and the United States, including some of the earliest field research on generative propaganda.

Where can I read her writing?

Dr. Daepp's blog Adventures in AI & Democracy publishes longer essays. Recent op-eds appear in The Economist's By Invitation series and a Perspective in Nature Computational Science. Peer-reviewed work is listed on Google Scholar.

Is she available for talks, panels, or podcasts?

Yes. Recent appearances include a keynote at ECIR 2026 (the European Conference on Information Retrieval), the Stimson Center, Carnegie Mellon Heinz, and Purdue. Inquiries via the contact button at https://madeleinedaepp.com.

What was Project Eclipse?

Project Eclipse was a 100+ node hyperlocal air-quality sensor deployment in Chicago (2020–2023), led by Dr. Daepp at Microsoft Research with the City of Chicago. Its data anchored an investigative reporting series with MuckRock, WBEZ Chicago, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Generative Propaganda✦ AI for Civil Society✦ AI Divides✦ Multilingual Safety✦ Red-Teaming✦ Computational Social Science✦ Civic Technology✦ Sociotechnical Research✦ Generative Propaganda✦ AI for Civil Society✦ AI Divides✦ Multilingual Safety✦ Red-Teaming✦ Computational Social Science✦ Civic Technology✦ Sociotechnical Research✦

MADELEINE DAEPP

Dr. Madeleine I. G. Daepp is the Research Director at CDT, where she studies the challenges and opportunities novel technologies present for global democracies. A civic technologist by training, Madeleine is committed to ensuring AI and other emerging technologies solve more problems than they create.

About.

Civic technologist.
AI & democracy.

PhD, Urban + Regional Planning: Massachusetts Institute of Technology · 2016–2020
MSc, Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems: University of British Columbia · 2014–2016
BA, Economics and Mathematics: Washington University in St. Louis · 2009–2013

↓ Full CV below

I’m Research Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a think tank that defends civil rights and liberties in the digital age. I’m currently on civic leave from Microsoft Research, where my work spans interviews with frontlines democracy defenders in Taiwan and India to understand how generative AI reshaped global elections to studies of Copilot logs to understand the emerging AI divide in adoption.

I’m a civic technologist by training — I did my Ph.D. in urban planning, a discipline that is about how people solve problems in shared public spaces. The shared spaces I study these days tend to be online, but earlier projects were in physical space. I was research lead on Project Eclipse, a 100+ sensor hyperlocal air-quality deployment in Chicago. Our data anchored a three-newsroom reporting series by MuckRock, WBEZ Chicago, and the Chicago Sun-Times, and I taught the work as a case study at the World Bank/USC Annenberg Summer Institute. I’ve also worked with Boston residents to map displacement patterns using consumer credit data, and I collaborated with public health nutritionists to quantify food advertising environments around Vancouver schools. Core to my work is centering the people most affected by a problem in devising its solutions.

Speaking.

I speak about generative AI on democracy’s frontlines — what miscreants are up to, how civil society is pushing back, and how tech and government leaders should respond. For speaking and media inquiries, .

Madeleine on stage at ECIR 2026, sitting on a red chair with four other panelists — ECIR 2026 · IR4Good Panel, Delft

Jul 16, 2026

Lecture · SICSS-UW 2026

University of Washington · Summer Institute in Computational Social Science

Upcoming
May 18, 2026

Lightning talk · Community-Centered AI

Cornell · Thought Summits

Lightning
Apr 16, 2026

Guest lecture · Transformative Texts (SCLA 102)

Purdue University

Lecture
Apr 14, 2026

Guest lecture · 94-844 Generative AI Lab

Carnegie Mellon University · Heinz College

Lecture
Mar 31, 2026

Keynote: Gemini Hegemony ▸ Slides ↗ ▸ PDF ↗

ECIR 2026 · European Conf. on Information Retrieval

Keynote
Mar 30, 2026

IR4Good Panel

ECIR 2026

Panel
Dec 11, 2025

Responsible AI: Horizon-Scanning Workshop III

Stimson Center

Lecture

Videos.

► Microsoft · Resilience, Ep. 4

Climate action through innovation

Featured interview on Project Eclipse — how 100+ low-cost sensors mapped air pollution across Chicago and what civic-tech partnerships make that kind of work possible.

2024 Watch on YouTube ↗

Writing.

Op Eds & Perspectives.

Nature Computational Science · Perspective

AI and the democratization of knowledge work

With Kiran Tomlinson, Scott Counts & Siddharth Suri — on who is using generative AI at work, who benefits, and the technical and social interventions that could address the emerging social and place-based divides in adoption.

May 27, 2026 Published

The Economist · By Invitation

Video will kill the truth if monitoring doesn’t improve, argue two researchers

With Robert Osazuwa Ness — lessons from Taiwan’s 2024 election on what generative AI is doing to public information, and what serious monitoring would look like.

March 26, 2024 Op-ed

Ghost posts.

Open the blog →

Mentoring.

One of the best parts of my job.

I’ve been fortunate to work with wonderful interns and field researchers. Here are some of the PhD interns, field researchers, and collaborators who have shaped the work with me.

PhD interns

Isaac Slaughter
Saloni Dash
Alejandro Cuevas Villalba
Eva Maxfield Brown
Jennifer Scurrell
Ayina Anyachebelu
Precious Esie
Ti-Chung Cheng
Anastasia Montgomery

Field researchers

Alex Cabral
Dibyendu Mishra
Bharat Kumar Nayak
Vickie Yu-Ping Wang
Aparna Kalra
Shaily Desai

Curriculum vitae.

Appointments

May 2026 — present: Research Director, Center for Democracy & Technology · Washington, DC
Oct 2025 — May 2026: Visiting Director of Civic Innovation, Public Democracy America
2020 — present (on civic leave 2025–26): Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research · Redmond / Cambridge
2021 — 2023: Affiliate Associate, Department of Economics, Harvard University · Cambridge, MA
2020: David E. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies / T.H. Chan School of Public Health · Cambridge, MA
2018 — 2020: Researcher, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health · Cambridge, MA
2017 — 2020: Research Fellow, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston · Boston, MA
Spring 2017: Clinical Student, Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic · Cambridge, MA
2013 — 2014: AmeriCorps VISTA, United Way of Southeastern Connecticut

Education

2016 — 2020: PhD, Urban + Regional Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2014 — 2016: MSc, Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia
2009 — 2013: BA, Economics and Mathematics, Washington University in St. Louis · summa cum laude

Grants & awards

2020: Governance Fellow · Harry S. Truman Foundation (U.S. Federal Government)
2019: Bill Mitchell++ Fund Award · MIT
2019: Harold Horowitz (1951) Research Fund Award · MIT
2016: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship · U.S. National Science Foundation
2016: Presidential Fellowship · MIT
2016: Vanier Canada Graduate Fellowship (Declined) · Government of Canada
2015: Li Tze Fong Fellowship · University of British Columbia
2015: EPIC Scholarship · Columbia University
2013: Olin Prize for Excellence in Economics · Washington University in St. Louis
2013: Class Marshall · Washington University in St. Louis
2013: Finalist · Rhodes & Marshall Scholarships
2012: Truman Scholarship · Harry S. Truman Foundation
2012: Udall Scholarship · Udall Foundation
2009: Arnold J. Lien Full-Tuition Scholarship · Washington University in St. Louis

Publications

2026: Daepp MIG, Tomlinson K, Counts S, Suri S. AI and the democratization of knowledge work. · Nature Computational Science
2026: Daepp MIG, Slaughter I. How Early Adopters Used Generative AI Worldwide: Variation by Country Income and Language. · arXiv preprint
2025: Cuevas A, Dash S, Nayak BK, Vann D, Daepp MIG. Anecdoctoring: Automated red-teaming across language and place. · EMNLP
2025: Daepp MIG, Cuevas A, Ness RO, Wang VYP, Nayak BK, Mishra D. Generative Propaganda. · arXiv preprint
2025: Daepp MIG, Counts S. The emerging generative AI divide in the United States. · ICWSM
2025: Cuevas Villalba A, Brown EM, Scurrell JV, Entenmann J, Daepp MIG. Collecting Qualitative Data at Scale with Large Language Models: A Case Study. · CSCW
2025: Sportiche N, Blanco H, Daepp MIG, Graves E, Cutler D. Can Fair Share Policies Expand Neighborhood Choice? Evidence from Bypassing Exclusionary Zoning under Massachusetts Chapter 40B. · Housing Policy Debate
2024: Daepp MIG, Ness RO. Video will kill the truth if monitoring doesn’t improve, argue two researchers. · The Economist (By Invitation)
2023: Daepp MIG*, Cabral A*, Werner TM, Mansour R, Catlett C, Roseway A. The “three-legged stool”: Designing for equitable city, community, and research partnerships in urban environmental sensing. · CHI 2023 · *joint first authorship
2023: Daepp MIG, bunten dm, Hsu JW. The Effect of Racial Composition on Neighborhood Housing Prices: Evidence from Hurricane Katrina-Induced Migration. · Journal of Urban Economics
2023: Anyachebelu A, Cabral A, Abdin MI, Choudhury P, Daepp MIG. Characterizing the effects of structural fires on fine particulate matter with a dense sensing network. · Scientific Reports
2023: Montgomery A, Daepp MIG, Abdin MI, Choudhury P, Malvar S, Counts S. Intraurban NO₂ hotspot detection across multiple air quality products. · Environmental Research Letters
2022: Daepp MIG, Cabral A, Iyer V, Counts S, Johns P, Roseway A, Catlett C. Eclipse: An End-to-End Platform for Low-Cost, Hyperlocal Environmental Sensing in Cities. · ACM/IEEE IPSN, Milan, Italy
2022: Daepp MIG, Binet A, Gavin V, Arcaya MC. The Moving Mapper: Participatory action research with big data. · Journal of the American Planning Association
2022: Esie P, Daepp MIG, Roseway A, Counts S. Neighborhood Composition and Air Pollution in Chicago: Monitoring Inequities with a Dense, Low-Cost Sensing Network, 2021. · American Journal of Public Health 112(12): 1765–1773
2022: Daepp MIG. Small-area moving ratios and the spatial connectivity of neighborhoods: Insights from consumer credit data. · Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
2020: Daepp MIG, Graves EM, Arcaya MC. Gateways to Opportunity? Neighborhood Trajectories of Massachusetts Residents. · Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
2019: Daepp MIG, Gortmaker SL, Wang YC, Long MW, Kenney EL. WIC food package changes: trends in childhood obesity prevalence. · Pediatrics
2019: Velazquez CE, Daepp MIG, Black JL. Assessing exposure to food and beverage advertisements surrounding schools in Vancouver, BC. · Health & Place
2017: Daepp MIG, Black J. Assessing the validity of commercial and municipal food environment data sets in Vancouver, Canada. · Public Health Nutrition
2017: Daepp MIG, Arcaya MC. The effect of health on socioeconomic status: using instrumental variables to revisit a successful randomized controlled trial. · Economics & Human Biology
2017: Lebel A, Daepp MIG, Block JP, Walker R, Lalonde B, Kestens Y. Quantifying the foodscape: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the validity of commercially available business data. · PLoS One
2015: Daepp MIG, Hamilton MJ, Bettencourt L, West G. The mortality of companies. · Journal of the Royal Society Interface
2015: Flynt A, Daepp MIG. Diet-related chronic disease in the northeastern United States: a model-based clustering approach. · International Journal of Health Geographics
2015: Daepp MIG. Prices and Availability of Healthy Foods Across St. Louis. · The American Economist

Citations on Google Scholar →

Teaching

Apr 2026: Guest lecture · 94-844 Generative AI Lab (CMU Heinz, M.Beibei Li & Sara Kingsley)
Apr 2026: Guest lecture · Transformative Texts (Purdue SCLA 102, Eddie Yang)
Spring & Fall 2018: Teaching Assistant · Quantitative Reasoning, MIT — led R programming tutorial for graduate statistics class
Spring 2017: Co-lead · Epidemiology for Urban Planners, MIT — developed syllabus for graduate reading group on planning and public health
2014 — 2016: Teaching Assistant · Land, Food & Community 1, UBC
2011 & 2012: Teaching Assistant · Current Macroeconomic Issues, Washington University

Google Scholar ↗ LinkedIn ↗

Off-hours

Mostly riding around
in places like this.

Lake Geneva, CH
Touring × 2024

MADELEINE DAEPP