Barbara van Schewick (born 1972) is a computer scientist and law professor at

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (SLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, Stanford Law had an acceptance rate of 6.28% i ...

. She is widely recognized as a leading expert on net neutrality and the economic and social implications of internet regulation.

Life

Van Schewick was born in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia. She studied computer science at

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

and law at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

. After her first state law examination, she initially worked as a lawyer in Berlin, working, among other things, at a management consultancy and as a speechwriter for the then-Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen. After her second state law examination, she was the first residential fellow at

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

's newly founded Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

for 15 months. Since October 2004, van Schewick has been a research associate at the Department of Telecommunications Networks at Technische Universität Berlin. In van Schewick's dissertation for the degree of Dr.-Ing., she dealt with

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

architecture, with both the design principles underlying it (particularly the end-to-end principle), and the technical, economic and social progress that this makes possible. Van Schewick's scholarly interests focus particularly on issues of

net neutrality Net neutrality, sometimes referred to as network neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering User (computing), users and online content providers consistent tra ...

. She emphasizes the economic disadvantages to be feared if net neutrality were abandoned and network operators were each able to set their own rules for Internet use. In this respect, she has also been repeatedly consulted as an expert by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

. She is of the opinion that the Internet as it was originally designed and has functioned to date, as well as the opportunities for innovation associated with it, are now "in danger." Van Schewick's work was supervised by Bernd Lutterbeck (TU Berlin) and Lawrence Lessig. In 2007, van Schewick received an appointment at Stanford Law School. She has since also served as associate professor of Electrical Engineering (by courtesy). Since Lessig's move to

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

, van Schewick has directed the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford. Van Schewick has received several awards for her work. She was a study and doctoral scholar of the Studienstiftung and a foreign scholar of the Daimler and Benz Foundation. In 2010, she received the Forschungspreis Technische Kommunikation of the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation for Communication Research. For her dissertation ''Internet Architecture and Innovation'', she was awarded the Science Prize of the German Foundation for Law and Informatics (DSRI) in 2005 and the Dieter Meurer Promotion Prize for Legal Informatics of the Deutscher EDV-Gerichtstag in 2006. Van Schewick is married and has two sons. She is the daughter of the former Federal Administrative Court judge Hans-Jürgen van Schewick.

Publications

References

External links

Barbara van Schewick at Stanford Law School

Barbara van Schewick at Center for Internet and Society (CIS) of Stanford Law School

Internet Architecture and Innovation

Diskussion im Verborgenen
Interview on net neutrality. In: Breitband. Deutschlandradio Kultur. Broadcast on July 4, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Schewick, Barbara van 1972 births German women computer scientists Technische Universität Berlin alumni Free University of Berlin alumni Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin Stanford University faculty 21st-century jurists Living people