Jess Reia

Jess Reia is a free culture activist, working on public interest advocacy and research that addresses power relations between technologies, people, and spaces. Reia was most recently an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University and the 2020-2021 BMO Fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montréal (CIRM), where they worked on a project titled “Data Governance for the 24-Hour City: Strengthening open data, digital rights, and public interest advocacy for the urban night.” 

Reia was also a Lecturer and Project Manager at the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Law School (CTS-FGV) from 2011 to 2019, studying the impacts of digitization and datafication on society from a critical, public interest approach.

Their main areas of research include science and technology studies, critical data studies, intellectual property, urban governance, and night studies. Reia is also currently an AI4HealthyCities Fellow at NewCities and a member of the Conseil de Nuit de MTL 24/24 in Montreal, Canada. 

Reia holds a PH.D. and an M.A. in Communication Studies from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and a B.A. in Public Policy from the University of São Paulo (USP).