In order to support our mission to make technology as widely accessible and broadly equitable as possible, CUNY PIT Lab is proud to have convened our inaugural advisory board.
Brought together with the invaluable guidance of founding board chair Brendon Hawkins, these six individuals will aid in our aims of building workplace and learning pathways for students, fostering cross-sector collaboration across non-profit and civic tech organizations, and continuing to create community-engaged research initiatives.
Meet our advisory board:
• Brendon Hawkins (founding chair) is a social technologist and systems researcher focused on modeling emotion as measurable infrastructure. He is the founder of Studio Lab BH, a systems research lab currently developing computational frameworks for understanding how affect shapes human behavior, culture, and digital environments. His work spans AI/ML product development, data systems, and interdisciplinary research.
• Katie Bailey is Senior Director at HearstLab, where she works with founders, investors, and industry leaders to help scale startups addressing real-world challenges. Over the past decade, she has led initiatives spanning product, innovation, strategy, and business development across Hearst’s B2B software and venture businesses. A longtime advocate for technology as a force for positive impact, Katie is particularly interested in how technology, entrepreneurship, and human-centered design can improve outcomes for individuals and communities.
• Seon Britton is a student in the PhD sociology program at CUNY’s Graduate Center, where he studies community organizations. He is currently working on his dissertation which focuses on community technology centers and how they utilize technology for community development. His work employs an ethnographic approach to see how organizations work across fields in fighting for digital equity.
• Renata Gerecke serves as an AI Policymaker within New York City’s Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), where they lead initiatives focused on algorithmic accountability, transparency and responsible AI adoption across city agencies. In this role, Renata oversees the city’s Algorithms Management and Reporting framework and contributes to policy guidance shaping how AI and automated decision systems are evaluated and deployed in public operations.
• Ruby Justice Thelot is a designer, artist & cyberethnographer based in new york city. He is a professor of design and media studies at NYU. His work focuses on digital phenomenology, virtual ontology and the implications of being-on-line. He writes about virtual realms, digital communities, and artificial intelligence. His work and research have been presented and published in journals, magazines, and conferences all over the world. He is the author of the books “A Cyberarchaeology of Checkpoints” and “A Few Essays of Taste” (Metalabel’s 2025 zine of the year). He is the founder of 13101401 inc, a design and research studio.
• Renée Westmoreland is a digital and UX leader for the social sector. Her career is focused on creating digital experiences for mission-driven audiences — work centered on transforming complexity into clarity, turning data and information into elegant, intuitive experiences that people can easily navigate and trust. As Senior Director of UX at Candid, Renée managed user experience for SaaS platforms and digital resources, and led the design process for unifying multiple legacy platforms into a single product serving millions of nonprofit professionals, as well as the development of digital solutions providing news and education to the social sector.
We will be highlighting each of our advisory board members on our blog beginning next week – make sure to return to our website to read more.