We are excited to welcome Liz Bryson as a Research Administrator at Protocol Labs.

We asked Liz about what brought her to Protocol Labs, the projects she’ll be working on, and her thoughts on future technological developments:

How did you decide to join Protocol Labs, and what are you working on?

PL presented me with my first opportunity to contribute to research projects outwith academia. This was important to me at the start of the pandemic, when its inflexibility became especially obvious and problematic. Even more importantly, I knew that PL would challenge me to do more than collate and reshuffle prior experiences in research. Success here will necessitate filling in gaps in my tech knowledge and viewing familiar research problems through a lens that is new to me. I’m excited to help facilitate the work that PL is engaged in and promote it widely.

What research problems are you most interested in exploring?

I’m interested in research that picks apart the ways in which humans interact with one another and asks how they can be improved. I don’t favor any single discipline’s approach to these topics, and I’m most intrigued by the overlap between different subject areas.

What future technology are you most excited about?

At any given moment, I’m probably thinking about the mind—its substrate and immateriality; its plasticity and evolutionary imperfections. So, I’m excited about technology that can help us understand and preserve the function of human minds (e.g., non-invasive brain recording modalities, advances in neurofeedback devices). I’m also excited about alternatives to current technologies that prey on psychological vulnerabilities to sell products and undermine privacy, which is why I’m interested in a decentralized web.