Erika Solis was a Google Public Policy Fellow at New America’s Open Technology Institute and a doctoral candidate at Penn State. Originally from Elizabeth, New Jersey, they previously earned their bachelor’s degree in advertising and master’s degree in strategic communication from Rowan University.
Since starting their doctoral program at Penn State (in Fall 2020!), they’ve presented research papers at multiple academic conferences. These projects included, but were not limited to, analyzing antitrust news coverage of Epic Games v. Apple, recommendations for updating child labor laws with “kidfluencers” in mind, and video game consumption vulnerabilities. Erika now teaches an undergraduate Gaming & Interactive Media class, focusing on how the video game industry functions from the corporate, consumer, and academic perspectives.
A class paper Erika wrote during their first year became the foundation of their research interests. This paper focuses on a case study analysis of children’s online video game platform and their privacy practices, and makes brief recommendations on streamlining COPPA standards. After many, many edits, Erika presented this paper at TPRC 2022, and the piece is now under review at the International Journal of Communication.
After a summer fellowship at Ranking Digital Rights, Erika became motivated to find other opportunities for policy and research work in D.C. During their third year, Erika was a remote student contractor at Future for Privacy Forum for its Youth and Education group. Here, they reviewed ed tech privacy policies under the Student Privacy Pledge, and analyzed state and Yribal laws for a database on children’s privacy rights.
Earlier this year, Erika wrote a paper with two of their cohort members that won the CRTC Prize for Excellence in Policy Research. This paper makes a case for updating Quebec’s children's advertising legislation, and is available on the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission's website. Erika’s work has also been featured in Tech Policy Press, First Monday, and Media Res.