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Robert J. Domanski

Robert Domanski, PhD, is the Director of Higher Education for the NYC Mayor’s Office of Talent and Workforce Development. As part of the Mayor’s “Tech Talent Pipeline” industry partnership, Rob oversees the “CUNY 2x Tech” initiative – a $30 million dollar investment into the City University of New York (CUNY) that has doubled internship rates and nearly doubled full-time employment rates at its partner colleges. Additionally, Rob oversees the City’s Tech Academic Council, working with the Presidents and Provosts of NYC-based colleges and universities to determine how best to align the Mayor’s goals with the needs of the City's academic institutions.

Rob was the recipient of the prestigious Hayes Prize Award for Public Service during the pandemic, was selected as a John Jay MPA Public Service Fellow, and has won various leadership awards including being listed among the 2023 Most Respected Professionals in Higher Education. Rob’s portfolio also includes prominent roles on recent and pandemic-era projects for the City government ranging from a Universal Broadband Solicitation, securing 50,000 laptops for CUNY students in the emergency migration to virtual learning, launching a PPE online marketplace for COVID-related health care equipment, developing a city-wide Economic Recovery Dashboard, supporting the City’s Small Business Loan program, and supporting the more recent Asylum-seeker crisis. Across CUNY, Rob has supported the development of innovative education initiatives - in partnership with extremely talented faculty and staff - such as the STEM Pedagogy Institute, the Peer-Enhanced Blockchain-Based Learning Environments (PEBBLE) project, the TIQC Blockchain Accelerator, and more. Over the past three years, Rob has also overseen the development and selection of dozens of CUNY Faculty and Departmental grant awards focused on curriculum innovation, transfer student remediations, experiential learning, accessibility design, and tech equity.

Previously, Rob spent 20 years teaching Computer Science and Political Science for Kean University and the City University of New York. His academic research focuses on Digital Government, Internet Governance, and the Politics of Algorithms. He has most recently published on the specific subtopics of Algorithmic Bias and Artificial Intelligence from technical, policy, and ethical perspectives. He is active on national and regional accreditation boards and is passionate about removing systemic barriers to careers for all students.

Who Governs the Internet? A Political Architecture

Synopsis:
There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is “ungovernable”. However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous types of authority have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? This book will contend that the Internet is, in fact, being governed, that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors, and an argument will be put forth as to how it is being governed.

This book presents a new conceptual framework for analysis that deconstructs the Internet into four policy “layers” with the aim of formulating a new political architecture that accurately maps out and depicts authority on the Internet today. Foremost, it will seek to draw a distinction between those actors who have a demonstrable policymaking authority versus those who merely wield influence. The book will then apply this four-layer model to an analysis of U.S. national cybersecurity policy, post-9/11. Ultimately, it will seek to determine the consequences of these political arrangements and governance policies.

     
PhD

Conferred 2014

     
20

Years of college teaching experience

 

 

I have had the privilege to work at these fine institutions:

2019 - Present

Kean University

Computer Science

2003 - 2017

College of Staten Island

Computer Science, Business

2016-2017

Macaulay Honors College

Computer Science

2007 - 2009

City College of New York

Political Science

2008 - 2010

City College of New York

Writing Fellow

2005 - 2006, 2011 - 2012

City College of New York

Graduate Teaching Fellow

Publications / Conferences:

Who Governs the Internet? A Political Architecture. Peer-reviewed book published by Lexington Books, 2015.

 
 

"Infusing Accessibility into Computer Science Education". Panel Presentation at the ACM-SIGCSE Annual Consortium for Computing Science in Colleges - Northeastern Conference (CCSCNE). Proceedings published in the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 38(8), 25-28. June 2023.

"Working Backwards from Employer Demand to Create New Cloud Computing Talent". Panelist at the Amazon (AWS) DC Summit. June 7, 2023.

"Research and Career Pathways at the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Social Justice". Keynote Presentation at the CUNY Research Scholars Program Symposium. May 31, 2023.

"The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education Systems". Keynote Presentation at the Career Services Technology Conference, St. Francis College. January 13, 2023.

"Removing Systemic Barriers to Tech Education". CUNY Information Technology Conference. December 1, 2022.

"PIT Pedagogy, Curriculum, and Career Pipelines: Exploring inclusive practices and opportunity gaps". Moderator at the Public Interest Technology - University Network (PIT-UN) 2022 Convening. October 28, 2022.

"Building a Cyber Ecosystem: Talent Development for Cybersecurity". Panelist at the CyberTech New York Conference. October 20, 2021.

"Research and Career Pathways at the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Social Justice". Keynote Presentation at the CUNY Research Scholars Program Symposium. July 28, 2021.

"Teach Access University Partners Panel on Digital Accessibility". Panelist at the Knowbility - John Slatin AccessU 2021 Conference. May 18, 2021.

"Pedagogical Best Practices for Teaching Foundational Computer Science Courses in Alignment with Employer Technical Interviews". Panel Presentation at the ACM-SIGCSE Annual Consortium for Computing Science in Colleges - Northeastern Conference (CCSCNE). Proceedings published in the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 36(8), 109-112. April 2021.

ACM-W Celebrates Women in Computing Conference, Conference Organizing Committee. May 7, 2021.

"The Demand for Public Interest Technology". Panelist at New America's Public Interest Technology - University Network (PIT-UN) 2020 Virtual Convening. November 12, 2020.

"Pandemic Response and Digital Government: Insights from New York City". Plenary Keynote Presentation at the Annual International Conference of Digital Government Research. Co-presented with Kate Hohman. June 15, 2020.

“Ethical Approaches to Intelligent Government Strategies and Implementation”. Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, Track Chair. June 2020.

“Strategies for Maximizing the Value of Industry Adjuncts: The Tech-in-Residence Corps Model”. Panel Presentation at the ACM-SIGCSE Annual Consortium for Computing Science in Colleges - Northeastern Conference (CCSCNE). Proceedings published in the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, , 35(8), 256-258. April 2020.

“Algorithmic Bias and the Emerging Policy Landscape in Artificial Intelligence”. Presented at the Center for Democracy and Technology, University at Albany. October 25, 2019.

“The A.I. Pandorica: Linking Ethically-challenged Technical Outputs to Prospective Policy Approaches”. Proceedings of the Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research. June 2019.

“The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”. Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, Track Chair. June 2019.

“Pathways to Employment Through Industry-informed Computer Science Education”. Presented at the ACM-W Celebrates Women in Computing Conference. May 10, 2019.

ACM-W Celebrates Women in Computing Conference, Conference Advisory Board. May 10, 2019.

“The Value of Industry-informed STEM Curriculum and Pedagogy”. Presented at the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) - Metropolitan New York Section Annual Meeting. May 4, 2019.

CUNY Conference on Social Justice and Emerging Technologies, Conference Steering Committee and Panel Moderator. April 12, 2019.

“Creating a Tech-in-Residence Corps of Industry Adjuncts: An Academic/Government/Industry Partnership”. Poster Presentation at the ACM Annual Conference of the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). Co-authored with Susan Imberman. February 27 - March 2, 2019.

“The Ethics of Algorithmic Governance”. Included on the panel, "Toward an Ethics of Digital Government: A First Discussion". Presented at the Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research. May 2018.

“Hacktivism and Distributed Hashtag Spoiling: Tales of the #IranTalks”. Published in First Monday, volume 23, number 4. Co-authored with Mahdi M. Najafabadi. April 2018.

Organizing Co-Chair for the Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, organized by the Digital Government Society. June 2017.

Book Review for Binary Bullets: The Ethics of Cyberwarfare in P.S.: Political Science and Politics. May 2017.

“WiTNY: A Programmatic Approach Driving Gender Equity in Computer Science”. Discussant Panelist. CUNY Information Technology Conference. December 2, 2016.

“When Bitcoin Begets BitLicense: The New Challenges of Regulatory Policymaking when ‘Code is Law’”. Presented at the American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference. September 2016.

“Game-Maker Games and Their Discontents”. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC). May 27, 2015.

"'The Permanent Professor': How the Long-Term Use of Social Media Transforms the Professor-Student Relationship”. Presented at the American Political Science Association Teaching & Learning Conference (APSA-TLC). January 17, 2015.

“Isn’t Anything Private Anymore?”. Discussant Panelist. Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association (APSA). September 4, 2011.

“Defining the Public Interest: The Communications Act of 1934 and Its Effect on the Net Neutrality Debate”. Presented at the conference, 1935: The Reality and the Promise. Hofstra University. April 7, 2011.

“It's Cloud's Illusions I Recall, I Really Don't Know Clouds At All”. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Computer Measurement Group (CMG). December 7, 2009.

“Hacktivism! The Convergence of Political Activism and Computer Hacking”. Presented at the Graduate Student Political Science Conference. December 4, 2009.

“Writing Right: Teaching Writing Conventions Specific to a Discipline”. Presented at the conference, WAC Professional Development Day: Writing in the Disciplines. November 20, 2009.

“Trust Me, It's Good for You: Identifying and Addressing Writing Needs and Forming Course Partnerships”. Presented at the conference, Tracing Connections: Writing Across the Curriculum. April 24, 2009.

“Who Governs the Internet? The Policies, Institutions, and Governance of Cyberspace”. Presented at the CUNY Graduate Student Political Science Conference. March 2008.

“Directing the Stream: Using Web 2.0 Technologies for Marketing and Performance”. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Computer Measurement Group (CMG). December 2007.

"Personal Technologies: What's Applicable in the Workspace?" Presented at the Annual Conference of the Computer Measurement Group (CMG). December 2006.

“The Configuration and Deployment of Residential Web Servers”. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Computer Measurement Group (CMG). December 2004.

Current Course Materials:

 

 

 

 

Other Projects:

  • ROBBINS1 Satellite Project
    • I served as Faculty Mentor on a research grant designing the software interface for a satellite launched into Lower-Earth Orbit in 2017 with the mission of tracking space debris and telemetric data.

  • Twitter Sentiment Analysis on Political Candidates (code sample)
    • A software application that I developed in Python that pulls filtered data from Twitter's Live API and uses IBM's Alchemy Artificial Intelligence Engine to analyze aggregated tweets about specific political candidates.

  • View my Reddit AMA
    • In January 2016, I hosted an "Ask-Me-Anything" discussion on Reddit on the subject of Technology and Politics.

  • My Minecraft GitHub Page
    • A collection of Python scripts designed to build structures automatically in Minecraft