Nabiha Syed is an American technology lawyer and executive. Syed was the chief executive officer of '' The Markup'', a data-driven media startup. She has been described as "one of the best emerging free speech lawyers" by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine. In 2023, Syed was recognized as a transformational leader in digital civil rights by the NAACP. On May 15, 2024, Syed became the executive director of the

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the Open-source software, open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

Biography

Syed was born to parents who immigrated from

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. A Marshall Scholar, Syed co-founded the Media Freedom and Information Access legal clinic at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

, of which she is a graduate and a visiting fellow. She led libel, privacy, and newsgathering matters at ''

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...

'', a global media company. Prior to BuzzFeed, Syed was the First Amendment Fellow at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Syed also serves as adjunct faculty at

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism sch ...

, and on the boards of the

New York Civil Liberties Union The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is a civil rights organization in the United States. Founded in November 1951 as the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, it is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization with nearly ...

, the

New Press The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André SchiffrinReid, Calvin (December 2, 2013)"New Press Founder André Schiffrin Dead at 78" ''Publishers Weekly''. Accessed August 1, 2014. ( Ch ...

, the Scott Trust (owner of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' newspaper), and the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. She and her work have been featured in the ''

Yale Law Journal ''The Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ) is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School. The journal is one ...

'' and Vanity Fair. Under her leadership, ''The Markup'' published an investigation that revealed a third of the top 100 hospitals in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

were sharing patients' personal data with

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, which led to both the social media company and several hospitals involved being sued under the

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Ted Kennedy, Kennedy–Nancy Kassebaum, Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President ...

Recognition

In 2016, she was named as a "40 Under 40 Rising Star" by the ''

New York Law Journal The ''New York Law Journal'', founded in 1888, is a legal periodical covering the legal profession in New York, United States. Background The newspaper, published Monday through Friday, provides daily coverage of civil and criminal cases from ...

''. In 2017, she was a finalist for the

International Bar Association The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is a bar association of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. The IBA in 2018 had a membership of more than 80,000 individual lawyers and 190 bar associati ...

Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year Award. In 2018, Syed received the inaugural Rising Star Award from the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press. Also that year, Nabiha delivered the Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press at the

Harvard Kennedy School The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), is the school of public policy of Harvard University, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Kennedy School offers master's de ...

. In 2020, Syed delivered the commencement address at Northeastern. In 2022, The Markup, under Syed's leadership, was recognized as a Most Innovative Company by FastCompany. In 2023, she was awarded the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

's Digital Civil Rights Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Syed, Nabiha Marshall Scholars Yale Law School alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni American women lawyers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people BuzzFeed people 21st-century American women American people of Pakistani descent Mozilla