Barbara van Schewick

Position / Title: 
Associate Professor of Law and (by courtesy) Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, and Director, Center for Internet and Society
Links: 
Twitter
Internet Architecture & Innovation
Contact: 
schewick@stanford.edu
650.723.8340
Focus Areas: 
Architecture and Public Policy
Areas of Expertise: 
Network Neutrality

Barbara van Schewick is an Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, an Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford’s Department of Electrical Engineering, and the Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. Her book Internet Architecture and Innovation was published by MIT Press in July 2010.

Van Schewick’s research focuses on the economic, regulatory, and strategic implications of communication networks. In particular, she explores how changes in the architecture of computer networks affect the economic environment for innovation and competition on the Internet, and how the law should react to these changes. This work has made her a leading expert on the issue of network neutrality, perhaps the Internet’s most debated policy issue, which concerns Internet users’ ability to access the content and software of their choice without interference from network providers. Her papers on network neutrality have influenced regulatory debates in the United States, Canada and Europe.

In 2007, van Schewick was one of three academics who, together with public interest groups, filed the petition that started the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality inquiry into Comcast’s blocking of BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer protocols. She has testified before the FCC in en banc hearings and official workshops. She co-authored an amicus brief – along with Professors Jack Balkin, Lawrence Lessig, and Tim Wu, among others – defending the FCC order that ordered Comcast to stop interfering with BitTorrent.

Prior to joining the Stanford Law faculty, van Schewick was a senior researcher at the Technical University Berlin, and a nonresidential fellow of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. From August 2000 to November 2001, she was that Center’s first residential fellow. Van Schewick is on the Advisory Board of Public Knowledge.

Van Schewick holds a PhD in Computer Science, an MSc in Computer Science, and a BSc in Computer Science, all summa cum laude from Technical University Berlin, the Second State Exam in Law (equivalent of Bar Exam), summa cum laude, from the Higher Regional Court Berlin and the First State Exam in Law (equivalent of J.D.), summa cum laude, from Free University Berlin.