Cambridge Disinformation Summit (2025)

Professor Deborah Prentice became the University of Cambridge’s 347th Vice-Chancellor on 1 July 2023.

An eminent psychologist, Professor Prentice carried out her academic and administrative career at Princeton University, which she first joined in 1988. She rose through the academic ranks and took on administrative responsibilities of increasing scope, chairing the Department of Psychology for 12 years, serving as Dean of Faculty for 3 years, and then serving 6 years as Provost, with primary responsibility for all academic, budgetary, and long-term planning issues.

Her academic expertise is in the study of social norms that govern human behaviour – particularly the impact and development of unwritten rules and conventions, and how people respond to breaches of those rules. She has edited 3 academic volumes and published more than 50 articles and chapters, and she has specialised in the study of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and gender stereotypes.

Nina Jankowicz is the CEO of The American Sunlight Project, and an adjunct professor at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

In 2022, Nina was named by President Biden’s administration as the Executive Director for the Disinformation Governance Board, US Department of Homeland Security. Nina advises many policy institutions and is a prolific author for prominent outlets like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She is also the author of “How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict”.

In naming her one of the “100 Most Influential People in AI 2023”, Time Magazine reported that “hours into her appointment, [Nina] became the target of a sustained disinformation campaign herself… trolls on the internet waged continuous attacks that included allegations that she was transgender and infertile. Prominent Republicans and Fox News… derisively dubbed the board a ‘ministry of truth’. Jankowicz eventually resigned, and the US government disbanded the board just 3 weeks after it was first announced. Yet the attacks continued…[including] deepfake porn videos featuring her official US portrait.”

Yoel Roth is the Vice President of Trust and Safety at Match Group, a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Knight Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication.

Yoel previously served as the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter before and during that platform’s transition to new ownership. Yoel penned a late-2023 essay in the New York Times that documented how politically-charged responses to his work at Twitter incited significant personal security concerns—and represent a strategic intervention against online trust and safety efforts.

“Following the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, I helped make the call to ban [the former U.S. President Trump’s] account from Twitter altogether… Backed by fans on social media, Mr. Trump publicly attacked me… Private individuals — from academic researchers to employees of tech companies — are increasingly the targets of lawsuits, congressional hearings and vicious online attacks… [for] their desired effect: universities are cutting back on efforts to quantify abusive and misleading information spreading online. Social media companies are shying away from making… difficult decisions.”

Marianna Spring is the BBC’s first disinformation and social media correspondent and an award-winning journalist. She presents podcasts and documentaries investigating disinformation and social media for BBC Radio 4 podcasts, as well as for BBC Panorama and BBC Three. She is also one of the presenters of the BBC’s Americast podcast. In 2022, she was named the British Press Guild’s Audio Presenter of the year and Royal Television Society Innovation winner. Her first book, Among the Trolls: My Journey Through Conspiracyland, was published in 2024 by Atlantic.