dmolnar wrote:

Perhaps in evaluating potential programs, it would be helpful to list people in the policy + technology area who are worth looking into. Along perhaps with which institutions they studied at? I'll start. I regret that I'm not familiar with this area, and so I'm sure I'll overlook many interesting people.

Great start! If anyone is interested, maybe this weekend I could put together a list of the top policy analysis schools with their technology & policy faculty and backgrounds: I'm sure there are plenty of researchers with a lower profile than those on your list who might be a great match for potential students out there. All you really need is to find a few key people to mentor you whom you can really learn from and relate to, to make it worthwhile.

I'm also not sure what to do about people with some policy interests who are primarily cryptographers -- do we include Ron Rivest because of his work on electronic voting?

Sure, anyone you think might be interesting to work with and learn from.

By the way, what exactly do you *do* after you graduate from a technology and policy program?

You can find all sorts of thing to do at universities, think tanks, NGOs, lobbying groups, etc. doing applied work, abstract work, or a combination of both. I'm sure where you end up depends a lot on your focus area and skill set.

Every now and then I wonder if I will eventually end up in law school or a policy + technology program. The thought is alternately exciting and saddening. Then again, so is the prospect of being a "pure" researcher.

Since it's multidisciplinary from the start, if you take the analysis road, you have a much better chance of "building in" some flexibility and doing as much "pure research" as you want to in the long run. Take law, you're just stuck with doing law. But of course I'm 100% biased, so any any encouragement in this direction should be judged accordingly! :) Good luck... ~Faustine.