Michelle Wronski

🌐 Digital Policy Researcher

💡 I research technology policy & its impact on society

Currently Based At
🔬Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose 🏫University College London 📍 London, United Kingdom 📧 m.wronski@ucl.ac.uk
Michelle Wronski

01 About

I'm a Digital Policy Researcher working at the intersection of data and policy. I work to better understand how data can help support policy measurement.

I have experience in qualitative research and cross-sector stakeholder engagement spanning academia, government, and the non-profit sector. I'm currently a Research Assistant at UCL's Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, working on the DPI Map project. Previously, I worked for organisations including the Canadian Federal Government, The World Bank, and the Alan Turing Institute.

Research Design Policy Analysis Data Analysis Research Communication
🎓 Education
MSc, Media and Communication Governance
📍 London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), United Kingdom 🇬🇧
AI Accountability Dissertation Media Governance Digital Policy
Honours BA, Communication and Management in French Immersion with Co-op
📍 University of Ottawa, Canada 🇨🇦
Digital Social Research Media Studies Management French
🌍 Languages
🇬🇧 English (Native) 🇫🇷 French (B2) 🇮🇹 Italian (A2) 🇪🇸 Spanish (A2)

02 Research, Writing & Engagements

Current

Mapping Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI Map)

research
📍 Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), United Kingdom

Contributed to the DPI Map project at UCL IIPP, mapping digital ID, payment, and data exchange systems across 210 countries and co-authoring the State of DPI 2025 report on how these systems are measured and governed.

Digital Public Infrastructure Policy Mapping Digital Governance DPI Measurement
2026

The Whiplash of Unboxing AI

writing
📍 Godmothers of AI Magazine

A personal essay tracing the rapid arc of AI's public arrival, from an "Age of AI" documentary watched in 2019, through a dissertation on AI accountability in 2023, to today, on why the pace of AI's integration into daily life keeps outrunning our ability to process or legislate it.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI Governance Technology and Society Responsible AI

What Actually Counts as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)?

research
📍 University College London - Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Blog

A reflection on the DPI Map methodology and the practical challenges of collecting and comparing evidence on digital ID, payments, and data exchange systems across countries.

Digital Public Infrastructure Digital Government Digital Transformation Public Infrastructure Digital Governance

Lexicon for DPI

engagement
📍 Warwick University, United Kingdom

Cited in: The Common Good Economy: A New Compass

citation
📍 Mariana Mazzucato, Penguin

My article "The Service Gap: Europe's International Digital Strategy 2025," published by the Lisbon Council, is cited in this book.

World Bank AI and Data for Better Governance Survey

research
📍 The World Bank

As part of a short-term consultancy, contributed to the World Bank AI and Data for Better Governance team. Findings fed into World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence, the World Bank Group's flagship report on AI's implications for developing economies.

AI Governance Survey Design Digital Public Infrastructure
2025

The Service Gap: Europe's International Digital Strategy 2025

writing
📍 The Lisbon Council, Belgium

Written with Mike Bracken and David Eaves in response to the EU's International Digital Strategy, arguing that services beget stacks, not the other way round, and that Europe's path to interoperable digital public infrastructure should start with solving real user problems.

Essay EU Digital Strategy Digital Sovereignty European Digital Strategy Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Interoperability

AI Accountability and Global Developments in AI Governance

talk
📍 PACC-CCAP Privacy & Data Governance Congress, Ottawa, Canada

Presented research on AI accountability and global AI governance developments, engaging with Canada's leading privacy regulators on how regulatory approaches are adapting to a fast-moving tech policy landscape.

Talk AI Governance
2023

AI Accountability in Early-Stage AI Businesses

research
📍 London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), United Kingdom

Master's dissertation examining how early-stage AI businesses attribute accountability and liability in the governance of their AI products, completed as part of an MSc in Media and Communication Governance at the London School of Economics (LSE).

AI Governance Dissertation Research
2022

Measuring Online Positivity: Machine Learning Models vs. Human Coders

research
📍 University of Ottawa, Canada

A directed study comparing machine-learned (BERT) and human-coded sentiment on tweets directed at Canadian journalists during the 2019 federal election, examining where the two methods disagree on what counts as "positive."

Sentiment Analysis Content Analysis
2021

We Looked at How Popular the 2019 Federal Debate Themes Were in Reddit Post Titles

research
📍 University of Ottawa, Canada

Co-led a study with University of Ottawa researchers analyzing how the 2019 English federal leaders' debate themes appeared in Reddit post titles across r/canada, r/onguardforthee, and r/CanadaPolitics, using a custom popularity score to compare engagement across subreddits of different sizes.

Digital Social Research Content Analysis

03 (Selected) Communication Projects

Before taking on research full-time, I worked in several communications roles. Here are a few shortlisted projects.

Citizenship in a Connected Canada book cover
Citizenship in a Connected Canada
Book cover design for the edited volume by Elizabeth Dubois & Florian Martin-Bariteau (University of Ottawa Press, 2020).
CETaS Research Report AI and Strategic Decision-Making
AI and Strategic Decision-Making
Design lead for this CETaS (Alan Turing Institute) report on communicating AI-enriched intelligence to strategic decision-makers, commissioned by the UK's Joint Intelligence Organisation and GCHQ.
CETaS Research Report Assurance of Third-Party AI Systems
Assurance of Third-Party AI Systems for UK National Security
Design lead for this CETaS (Alan Turing Institute) report on assuring third-party AI systems for UK national security, covering supply chain risk and a proposed system card standard.
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