Dhanaraj Thakur

Dhanaraj Thakur leads the Emerging Technologies Initiative which is part of the Multiracial Democracy Project at the George Washington University Law School. The Initiative centers racial justice in technical, governance, and policy questions about AI and democracy. Over the last 20 years he has worked to advance equity and human rights in tech policy. He has numerous peer-reviewed publications including research on intersectionality in AI development and use, online violence targeting women of color political candidates, and the implications for linguistic equity from the use of multilingual large language models.

His work has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, WIRED, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. He is a member of the advisory board of the Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition. A former Fulbright Scholar, Inter-American Development Bank Scholar, and ISOC Ambassador, he previously led research at the Center for Democracy & Technology. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and is a graduate of the London School of Economics, and the University of the West Indies, Mona.