Andrés Monroy-Hernández is a researcher at Microsoft Research and an affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. His interdisciplinary work focuses on the design and study of social computing systems that aim to address societal problems such as the lack of information during crises, the need for developing digital media literacies among children, and the need for access to healthcare in the developing world. Broadly speaking, he is motivated by the use of social technologies to support civic engagement and creative collaboration.

Andrés is the creator of the Scratch Online Community, a website that has helped millions of young people around the world learn programming and engage in creative collaboration by building, remixing, and sharing video games and animations. He is also the co-founder of Sana, a mobile healthcare system for the developing world. More recently, he has become one of the leading scholars examining the role of social media in the midst Mexican Drug War.

His work has been awarded at Ars Electronica, the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition, and received best paper awards at several academic conferences.

Furthermore, Andrés' research has been featured in the media, including The New York Times, CNN, Wired, Technology Review, NPR, ABC Radio, and El País. In 2012 he was named one of Boston Business Journal's Emerging Leaders.

Andrés holds a PhD from the MIT Media Lab, and bachelor's from the Tecnológico de Monterrey. He was born and raised in northern Mexico, and he loves carne asada.

You can follow him on Twitter.

For a full list of publications, talks, and bio please take a look at Andrés' Curriculum Vitae.