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FellowsHIP Program

The Digital Thriving Fellows Program exists to amplify bold ideas that help young people thrive in a tech-filled world. Each year, we support a small group of innovative researchers, educators, practitioners, and creatives who are shaping new possibilities for digital life — always with young people at the center.

Fellows join a growing community of leaders exploring fresh ways to spark conversation, shift perspectives, and build resources that help both young people (and the adults who care for them) thrive.

  • Applications: Typically open each spring for 3–4 Fellows.
  • Selection: Fellows are chosen following a multi-step application process in late spring/early summer.
  • Fellowship year: Runs from fall through the following summer. Fellows meet monthly as a cohort, join an in-person gathering in Cambridge, and share their work publicly.
  • Status for 2025: Applications for the 2025–2026 cycle are now closed. Join our email list to hear when the next round opens!

From reimagining online empathy to blending community-centered Pan-African concepts with digital life, our new Fellows are sparking conversations that challenge old assumptions and open up new possibilities.

Here’s a look at their projects:

Teyra Anderson

Teyra’s project, MYA: IRL, is a youth-guided mini-series that captures the real complexities of growing up in a hyperconnected world. Co-created with teens, the series explores how digital life intersects with friendship, family, identity, and selfhood.

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Michael Davis

Michael’s project brings mindfulness and cyberpsychology into K–5 classrooms, developing tools that help kids build resilience, regulate emotions, and grow into mindful digital citizens.

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Greg Depow

Greg’s project explores how young people can practice wise empathy to reshape their online experiences — engaging with others’ emotions in ways that foster joy, compassion, and authentic sharing rather than comparing.

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Ecy King

Ecy’s project, Tech for Togetherness, is an interactive comic guide that blends Pan-African concepts with technology to offer youth fresh frameworks for community-centered digital thriving.

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Alija Blackwell is a futurist and creative technologist. As the Principal Foresight Strategist at the Oneiric Lab, Blackwell’s work maps historical patterns and emerging trends at the intersections of technology, climate, and transformative justice to anticipate pathways to equitable futures.

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Adrienne Joe is a fellow at the Center for Digital Thriving. She is currently a Lead Technologist at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she builds and deploys AI and machine learning-based decision support tools for the Pentagon’s Chief Digital AI Office (CDAO).

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Molly Josephs is an educator who runs the youth dialogue and podcasting program, This Teenage Life (TTL). She started TTL with teens while working at High Tech High, inspired by many summers in cross-conflict dialogue at Seeds of Peace camp.

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Chrystal Koech is the Senior Director of Digital Operations and Strategy at Facing History and Ourselves. She is a proud alumna of the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a Master’s in Education—Technology, Innovation, and Education and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Tufts University.

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Here are some of the questions we get most often about the Fellowship:

Who is eligible to apply?
What kinds of projects are a good fit?
What’s the time commitment?
What are Fellows expected to create?
Do you have a preference on the stage of the project or product?
If I’m not currently eligible, how can I connect with the Center for Digital Thriving team?