Katy Glenn Bass is the inaugural research director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. She is responsible for conceptualizing and executing all of the Institute’s research initiatives, including the production of scholarship and research materials, the organization of conferences and symposia, and the Institute’s Senior Visiting Research Scholars program.

Glenn Bass co-organized the Institute’s most recent symposium, Data & Democracy, with the Institute’s former Visiting Scholar Amy Kapczynski of Yale Law School. She also organized the Institute’s 2019 symposium, The Tech Giants, Monopoly Power, and Public Discourse. Both events brought together scholars and experts in law, computer science, economics, information studies, journalism, political science, and other disciplines. Together, these events have produced over 20 original essays reflecting on the intersection of public and private power, the shaping of online public discourse, and the protection of the right to self-government in the internet age.  

Prior to joining the Institute, Glenn Bass worked at PEN America, where she supervised the production of reports analyzing free expression issues, including the lack of protections for national security whistleblowers, attacks on journalists covering the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, the impact of mass surveillance on online speech, and other topics. She has also taught at NYU Law’s Center for Constitutional Transitions and at the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham Law School. She holds a B.A. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she received the Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award.