My name is Sandra Cortesi. Since 2009, I have been a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Director of www.youthandmedia.org. At the Berkman Klein Center, among other things, I am responsible for coordinating the Youth and Media’s policy, research, and educational initiatives, and is leading the collaboration between the Berkman Klein Center and UNICEF. At Youth and Media I work closely with talented young people and lead researchers in the field as we look into innovative ways to approach social challenges in the digital world.
During my ten years at Harvard, together with Urs Gasser and the Youth and Media team, I have developed a robust, mixed methods, and global research infrastructure, that allows me to gain a novel understanding of the attitudes, values, and behaviors of young people (ages 12-18). This infrastructure allows me to analyze usage patterns of highly connected young people and anticipate future changes in behavior, track over time the ways in which evolving digital technologies and platforms are affecting attitudes and value propositions, and develop strategies and scenarios how to respond to such shifts at the level of platforms, products, and processes and in terms of marketing, communication, and engagement.
[Note: This page focuses primarily on a specific model — the “Youth Lab”. Upon request, I can share with you more information about other models.]