Aleja (“Uh-lay-hah”, he/they) is working to get more folks involved in decisions about data. Partway through a degree in Technology Policy at MIT, he has taken a temporary detour to serve as a Data Governance Fellow with the City of Boston. He spent the summer updating the city’s data governance policies and is now driving proof-of-concept pilots of cross-department governance systems for data, enterprise apps, digital services, and cybersecurity management. Between undergrad and graduate school, Aleja spent several years working in the private and public sectors at the intersection of data and social systems, including as an educator, research fellow in the California foster care system, social sector consultant, and business analyst at an advertising technology startup. He has a B.A. in Neurobiology with high honors from Harvard College.