Brittan Heller
CSIS Senior Associate, Human Rights Initiative
San Francisco Bay Area
Brittan Heller works at the intersection of technology, human rights, and the law, and is an expert on content moderation and the movement from online conduct to offline violence. She is the founder of the Center for Digital Civil Rights, an innovation lab for human and civil rights organizations. Heller is also a senior associate at CSIS's Human Rights Initiative and an affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center on Internet and Society. She advises tech companies, governments, and international organizations on integrating public safety and freedom of expression.
Heller previously founded the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Technology and Society. Her key projects included AI partnerships with academia to study hate speech and studying disinformation impacting minority communities. Additionally, Heller prosecuted grave human rights violations at the U.S. Department of Justice and the International Criminal Court and initiated landmark anti-cyber harassment litigation. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Truman National Security Fellow, and a Jeopardy! champion. Heller is a graduate of Yale Law School and Stanford University.