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Our Purpose

The Citizens and Technology (CAT) Lab at Cornell University is a public-interest research group led by Dr. J. Nathan Matias, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication.

Our Mission: Work with communities to study the effects of technology on society and test ideas for changing digital spaces to better serve the public interest.

Our Vision: A world where digital power is guided by evidence and accountable to the public.

How We Work

We do citizen science for the internet.

We seek to enable anyone to engage critically with the tech tools and platforms they use, ask questions, and get answers. Working hand-in-hand with diverse communities and organizations around the world, we identify issues of shared concern (“effects”) related to digital discourse, digital rights and consumer protection.

Our research methods can discover if a proposed effect is really happening, uncover the causes behind a systemic issue, and test ideas for creating change