State Level Issues in Tech, Regulation, & Economic Development

Keynote Speaker

Attorney General Doug Peterson

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson will speak at the conference. Elected as Nebraska’s 32nd Attorney General in 2014, Doug Peterson has dedicated his career to being an advocate for Nebraskans both in state and federal court. Peterson was born in Columbus, Nebraska and grew up primarily in Lincoln. From 1988 to 1990, he served as Assistant Attorney General to the Nebraska Attorney General’s office, representing the State in employment law matters and tort litigation. In 1990, Peterson entered private practice, where he had the opportunity to advise and advocate for both individuals and businesses. In his role as Attorney General, Peterson works closely with law enforcement agencies across the State to ensure that Nebraska communities are safe. Peterson’s office has supported strengthened legislation and enforcement in the areas of human trafficking, prosecution of child sexual assault and abuse, and consumer protection laws to safeguard all Nebraskans.

Keynote Speaker

Professor Shannon McGregor

Shannon McGregor is an assistant professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and a senior researcher with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life - both at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Her research addresses the role of social media and their data in political processes, with a focus on political communication, journalism, public opinion, and gender. Her published work examines how three groups – political actors, the press, and the public – use social media in regards to politics, how that social media use impacts their behavior, and how the policies and actions of social media companies in turn impacts political communication on their sites. She takes up diverse methodologies like surveys, experiments, and large-scale computational and network analysis, as well as qualitative methods like in-depth interviews, to understand political events in socially networked digital spaces. Her work aims to bring insights about and new theories of emerging political communication in hybrid media and political systems.

Her work has been published in the Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Political Communication, Journalism, and Information, Communication & Society, and I co-edited a book (with Dr. Talia Stroud), Digital Discussions: How Big Data Informs Political Communication.