Urs Gasser has officially been announced as the new executive director of the Berkman Center.

This is excellent news. Urs has been a fellow at the Center, as well as the head of an Internet research center in Switzerland. There’s thus no period of wondering if he shares our values, what do we think of him, etc. We know his, values and many of us have already had the pleasure of working with him and learning from him. Urs, in a word or two, is completely at home in the Berkman’s admirable ethos of smarts and kindness. I’m very, very happy that Urs has taken up this role. [Disclosure: Yes, Urs is in some sense my boss. But that's not really how the Center runs.]

Urs steps into the Bunyon-esque shows left by John Palfrey, who remains a faculty co-director but is now Vice Dean of Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law. Colin Maclay, managing director of the Center — so smart, so kind — served in the interregnum.

You can hear an interview with Urs (by, um, me) as part of the continuing Radio Berkman podcast series…

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