Staff Spotlight
Mallory Knodel, Chief Technology Officer
How long have you been working in digital rights? In 2008, I joined the leadership of May First people Link, a membership organization that provides emaiil and website hosting to hundreds of nonprofits and movement groups in the U.S., Mexico, and internationally. Back then, the main digital rights issues were free software and independent alternatives to corporate tools. I focused on the network's international outreach, which became rather fraught after Snowden's leaks demonstrated the fragility of U.S.-based infrastructure. Now, there are additional concerns about fragility of alternative and independent internet infrastructure, which is what I still try to focus on at CDT — but from a different angle, namely internet protocol standards.
What is your proudest moment while here at CDT? I felt very proud to be part of CDT as we collectively brainstormed and came up with concrete actions that we could take as an influential institution to help offset the effects of anti-Black racism in the United States and around the world. In June 2020, I worked with Airbnb on Project Lighthouse, and I restarted some hard conversations on exclusionary technical terminology at the Internet Engineering Task Force that are still raging today. I knew, in the high mark of protests and action in D.C. and around the country last year, that I was alongside colleagues and leadership that didn't just give lip service to racial justice, but are invested in a long-term vision of diversity, equity, and inclusion in technology and society.
What is the best book you've read recently? As a queer single parent, my emotional life and close relationships were literally transformed by the book Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. I have to thank my dear friend Wade, who agreed to mail me the gorgeous hard copy all the way from Michigan, which I then passed on to the next lucky reader in our network. I can't recommend it enough as a contemporary cultural marker for the ways that social and family relationships can intentionally make room for more beautifully complicated, and awfully difficult, configurations and ways of being in deep community with one another.
Cats or dogs? Our cats Daniel and Archimedes (Archie for short) have been real-life family members to me and my kids — we are certainly Team Cat. I also have a cat mascot or avatar, Catnip, who is the hero of a book that I co-authored with the talented illustrator and Tor developer Ulrike Uhlrig about "How the Internet Really Works" that came out last year.
