Christopher Bronk is the Baker Institute Fellow in Technology, Society, and Public Policy (TSPP). Drawing resources from the Baker Institute, Rice’s Computer and Information Technology Institute (CITI) and the Fondren Library, the TSPP Program studies the political and societal ramifications of new technologies in the areas of computing, information networks, data processing, biometrics, and geographic and imaging systems.

Bronk previously served as a diplomat with the United States Department of State with assignments both overseas and in Washington. His last assignment was to the Office of eDiplomacy, the department’s internal think tank on information technology, knowledge management, computer security and interagency collaboration. He also has experience in political affairs, counter-narcotics, immigration, and U.S.-Mexico border issues.

Bronk received a PhD from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. His doctoral thesis, In Confidence: Information Technology, Secrecy, and the State, won the All-University Prize for its contribution to scholarship across disciplinary lines of importance to public policy. He also served as a consultant to the South Korean government on security and transparency issues regarding information technologies and has participated in Track Two diplomacy with the North Korean Foreign Ministry. Earlier in his academic career, he studied international relations at Oxford University and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Bronk also holds considerable experience in software development, entrepreneurship, and business management. Prior to entering government service he worked in banking, pharmaceuticals, and publishing. He spent five years in the software industry, rising from a developer with a small startup firm to an executive position in Vivendi-Universal’s education division. He maintains currency in web technologies and recently managed the enterprise-wide deployment of wiki and blog software to support the Department of State’s knowledge management strategy.

He speaks fluent Spanish and is conversant in Korean.