Becky Lentz was most recently The Ford Foundation’s first program officer for media policy and technology appointed in 2001 through September 2007. In that capacity, she advanced media reform and justice advocacy and provided startup funding for many key organizations and projects in the field that include the Media Justice Fund, the HearUsNow.org portal at Consumers Union, CIMA, SSRC's Necessary Knowledge Program, the Well Connected project at the Center for Public Integrity, the Media Democracy Fund, the Media Policy Working Group of Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media, the Rockwood Leadership Program Fellowship in Media, Communications and Information Policy, the Media Empowerment Project at the United Church of Christ, the Civil Society Practitioners Program at the Oxford Internet Institute, the Internet Governance Project at Syracuse University, and the Freedom of Expression Project based in London. She joined the Foundation with 20 years’ combined experience in the corporate and non-profit sectors as well as state and local government where she developed software, designed and implemented multilingual public information campaigns and directed strategic planning, evaluation, and policy analysis projects related to information technology. Now a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Culture and Communication at the Steinhardt School of Educations at New York University, her current research interests focus on Information Society issues that include critical perspectives on the culture of U.S. communications regulation; technology and society; the role of philanthropy in social change related to information, communication, and technology (ICT) policy; theory-building that advances a human rights framework for media regulation; and civil society engagement in global governance issues related to communications policy. She has published in such journals as The Information Society, Telecommunications Policy, and Info and has presented in various academic and civil society forums.