The iSchool is pleased to announce that Meicen Sun will join the faculty as an assistant professor in August 2023, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Sun is a PhD candidate in political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a research affiliate with the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. For the 2022-2023 academic year, she will be a postdoctoral scholar with the Program on Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University.
Sun's research examines the political economy of information and the effect of information policy on the future of innovation and state power. Prior to MIT, Sun conducted research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and the UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa. She currently serves as a Global Future Council Fellow at the World Economic Forum and a Global Political Economy Project predoctoral fellow at Georgetown University.
"Few things excite me as much as the political economy of information and how power is exercised in cyberspace," said Sun. "We are seeing a world in which digital means of control are eclipsing traditional tools of coercion, giving rise to a new alignment of winners and losers."
Her writings have been published by academic and policy outlets including Foreign Policy Analysis, Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, the Asian Development Bank Institute, and The Diplomat. Sun holds an AB with honors from Princeton University and an AM with a Certificate in Law from the University of Pennsylvania.
"We are delighted to have a leading scholar such as Meicen joining us," said Dean and Professor Eunice E. Santos. "Her research into the political economy of information is significant on a national and global level and will complement our faculty's work in the realm of information policy."
"I couldn't feel more at home at the iSchool, where thinkers, makers, and doers fascinated by what the future holds for the information age come together in search of answers," said Sun.