Allison graduated from the University of San Francisco in May of 2008, with a double major in French and International Studies. She is an unabashed idealist fascinated by diversity of people, culture, and place, and has worked and volunteered extensively in the nonprofit sector in myriad capacities, ranging from writing to construction to working with youth. She finds great joy in reading everything, traveling anywhere, baking pie, and spending time in the Great Outdoors.

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Lisa is passionate about innovation in open systems, particularly open science. Lisa holds a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of California Berkeley. She did two postdoctoral fellowships before leaving bench research to pursue her keen interest in the interface of science and tech. Immediately prior to joining Creative Commons she worked in corporate development for the bioinformatics company NextBio.

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Ani Heung is the office manager at Creative Commons. Originally from Southern California, she received her Political Science degree from U.C. Berkeley and became a happy transplant to the Bay Area. She worked as an assistant in event planning and as a third-grade teacher before coming to CC. In her free time she likes reading old books, watching Cal sports and finding interesting places to eat out.

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Nathan has worked and tinkered in the area of computers and technology since around 1997. He has served as an Information Technology Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Belize, and holds a B.A. in history from Emory University.

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Mike Linksvayer joined Creative Commons as CTO and became Vice President in April 2007. Previously he co-founded Bitzi, an early open content/open data service.

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Jane communicates from Brooklyn, New York helping creators, companies, and institutions leverage Creative Commons licenses and CC-licensed content. A California native, she has degrees in Philosophy (B.A.) and Creative Writing from U.C. Berkeley. She is involved with the Peer 2 Peer University and has designed and facilitated a course on creative nonfiction writing. Before CC, she worked with AmeriCorps and the National Writing Project. She has an interest in pretty much everything, with a penchant for simplifying and spontaneous activity.

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As General Counsel for CC, Diane oversees the organization’s legal strategy, affairs and projects. She serves on the board of the Software Freedom Law Center. Prior to joining CC, she served as general counsel for Open Source Development Labs (now, the Linux Foundation), and thereafter was legal counsel to Mozilla. She is experienced at providing strategic advice and leadership on an array of IP issues impacting communities and the technology industry, including open source projects, FOSS licensing, and IP reform efforts and policy. Diane received a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1986 and a J.D. from Washington University in 1989. She is based in Portland, Oregon.

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Jonathan Rees is a computer scientist with interests in biological knowledge representation, the Semantic Web, open access publishing, and software technology. Prior to joining Science Commons he worked in the computational biology group at Millennium Pharmaceuticals on large-scale curated protein interaction networks and their use in the analysis of high-throughput experimental data. Jonathan is also an officer of the Cambridge Entomological Club and has initiated a project to bring 100 volumes of its journal Psyche — one of America’s oldest natural history journals — onto the web. He earned a B.S. in computer science from Yale and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

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Alex Roberts is the senior designer for Creative Commons, developing graphics on the web and print. He graduated from the Art Institute of California — San Francisco, and brings many years of experience in open source, and design. Originally from England, he now lives in the Bay Area with his cat, enjoying photography, motorcycles, and writing mobile software.

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Ted started his accounting career at Deloitte, and since 2005 he has worked as a Controller for both private and nonprofit organizations. He received a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as a board member of a nonprofit organization called Asia Connection Inc. Outside of work you’re likely to find Ted watching live music at the Fillmore, attempting to cook something palatable, taking a stroll with his dog at Golden Gate Park, or glued to the TV during a Carolina basketball game.

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Alan Ruttenberg is a principal scientist at Science Commons whose interest lies in structuring and using open biological and clinical knowledge to answer questions and computationally interpret experimental data. He is currently involved in a number of open biomedical ontology efforts, including: the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI), the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO), the Program on Ontologies of Neural Structures (PONS), and the Information Artifact Ontology (IAO). He has been an active participant in W3C Semantic Web activities being an early participant in the Health Care Life Sciences Interest Group and a chair of the OWL Working Group specifying OWL 2. He is a coordinating editor of the OBO Foundry. Full bio at sciencecommons.org.

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Aurelia hails from Wisconsin, the land of green & gold and yummy cheese. Her main interests are in copyright and intellectual property in Sub-Saharan Africa, and she has lived and worked in Zambia and Nigeria. She received her BA in Religious Studies from Carroll College (now Carroll University) and her JD from Vanderbilt University Law School. When not frolicking in the wonderful world of IP, she can be found sewing, buying shoes or re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time.

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Eric Steuer manages Creative Commons’ relationships with artists, media companies, and cultural institutions. He produces creative projects and events that emphasize the use of CC licenses, and also directs the organization’s media strategy. Before joining Creative Commons, Eric was as an editor for Wired Magazine, which he continues to write for. He is on the board of CASH Music, is the co-founder of Sneakmove Recordings, and is in a hip hop group called Meanest Man Contest.

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Timothy Vollmer is Policy Coordinator for Creative Commons, and has worked as a policy fellow, business development assistant, and intern for Creative Commons. Prior to rejoining CC, Timothy was Assistant Director to the Program on Public Access to Information for the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy in Washington, D.C. Timothy is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Information, with a specialization in information policy. While at Michigan, he was a research investigator for the Open.Michigan Open Educational Resource initiative, helped develop a student-centric OCW publishing pilot there. Timothy likes to ride bikes, take photos, and bake bread.

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Christopher Webber is a programmer and free software activist living in Chicago, IL. He has a BA from DePaul University in the Interdisciplinary Humanities. Previously he did work with the Participatory Culture Foundation on the Miro family of projects. He hacks code, makes artwork and animations with the GIMP and Blender, and generally forgets where he puts things or where he’s going.

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As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark.

John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He serves on the Board of Directors for DuraSpace and AcaWiki.

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Jennifer Yip hails from the midwest. She holds a Bachelors’ degree in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. She came to Creative Commons with several years of experience in research and administration for non-profit institutions. She enjoys the bay area’s temperate climate and cultural offerings.

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Diane Cabell, Corporate Secretary for Creative Commons, was the founder of the Clinical Program in Cyberlaw at the Berkman Center for Internet & Societyl where she also served as Assistant Director. Her legal practice focuses on web-based nonprofit start-ups and she also serves as a domain name dispute panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization. Based in Portsmouth, NH, Diane is currently serving as acting director of iCommons Ltd, a UK charity founded by CC in 2005.

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Chiaki Hayashi is the co-founder of Loftwork Inc., a leading creator network in Japan. With 13,000 registered creators, Loftwork works as a CC-based creative platform which provides massive creative solutions. One of her roles are to develop projects which connect best practices and activities of CC in Asian countries. Since 2006 she also sits on the advisory board of Creative Commons Japan.
Photo by Joi Ito, licensed CC-BY 2.0

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Paul Keller works as copyright policy advisor at Knowledgeland, an Amsterdam based think tank. He is the public project lead for Creative Commons in the Netherlands, coordinates the copyright related aspects of ‘Images for the Future‘ mass digitization project and is one of the developers of the Europeana Licensing Framework. Paul has been working on the relationship between Creative Commons and Collective Rights Management organizations since 2005. In August 2007 this work has lead to a first pilot project with the Dutch Collecting Society Buma/Stemra. Since 2006 Paul sits on the board of iCommons, currently serving as chairman of the board.

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Tal is a PhD student at UC Berkeley law school’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy program. Her research and interest revolves around copyright and collaborative works of authorship, cyber-policy and innovation. She enjoys the piano (actively and passively), food (as a consumer not a producer) and urban spaces. Tal worked for Israeli stratups first as a system analyst and then as a product manager. She is a Tel Aviv university Computer Science graduate and a Law graduate.

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