Genevieve Gebhart
About
Genevieve Gebhart is a recipient of the Academic Year 2015-2016 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship. The award provides undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students with financial support to develop fluency in less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) and expertise in the regions in which these languages are spoken. Every year the Center for Global Studies awards between 12-15 fellowships to UW students. Click here to learn more.
As a Master’s student in the Information School, I have focused my studies and research on Internet issues in Southeast Asia, particularly Internet censorship, surveillance, and criminalization in Thailand. My interest in this topic started when I was living and working in Laos and Thailand as a 2013-2014 Henry Luce Scholar, a time that included months of protests in Bangkok and finally Thailand’s 2014 military coup. My current thesis with the Security and Privacy Research Lab in Computer Science & Engineering looks at how users of the Thai Internet experience and respond to censorship through bilingual surveys and interviews. The Thai Foreign Language & Area Studies award I received from the Center for Global Studies has been key to this research, as it has given me the time and resources to pursue advanced study of information and security topics in Thai, translate research materials, and broaden my understanding of the Southeast Asian information and security landscape.