Graciela Selaimen
Graciela Selaimen is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and activist. She has a specialization in gender and local development and a master’s degree in communication and culture from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
A senior advisor with IRIS, Graciela recently founded Instituto Toriba, a Brazil-based non-profit aiming to support civil society organizations, governments, and philanthropic institutions to forecast, design, and translate desired futures into stories, prototypes, and programs. Formerly, as a Senior Program Officer with the Ford Foundation, Graciela developed strategies and programs in the areas of Technology and Society, Creativity and Freedom of Expression, and Civic Engagement and Governance, crosscutting gender and race perspectives. Her work has contributed to consolidating the field of digital rights in Brazil and bolstering the independent investigative journalism ecosystem, and she worked as part of a small team at Ford Foundation that helped design and launch IRIS. She has also worked to strengthen collaboration between arts and culture initiatives with social justice and socio-environmental organizations.
Prior to joining Ford Foundation in 2013, she was a co-founder and director of the Nupef Institute, a research and advocacy organization on digital rights and internet governance, whose work influences national and international policy and debate. From 2008 to 2013, she was editor-in-chief of the poliTICs magazine, the first publication dedicated to digital policy and rights in Brazil.
Graciela is an RSA Fellow and a Research Working Group Member at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policies. She serves on boards of directors, including with Oxfam Brazil, Agência Pública de Jornalismo Investigativo, the Digital Resilience and Social Justice Network.