Erhardt Graeff is an educator, social scientist, public interest technologist, and public official. His work spans two areas: the design and use of technology for civic engagement, civic learning, and social justice; and the ethical responsibility of technologists as stewards of democracy. His current research focuses on articulating the responsibilities of engineers as citizens and developing new forms of civic and character education within undergraduate engineering. His pedagogy is organized around developing students’ professional and civic identities by integrating ethical reflection, participatory methods, and technical design with authentic experiences.
Erhardt is an Associate Professor of Social and Computer Science at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, where he co-founded the public interest technology clinic PInT and serves as Olin’s liaison to the Public Interest Technology University Network. He is also a faculty affiliate of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, a faculty associate at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a 2025–26 KEEN Engineering Unleashed Fellow. Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar, he holds a PhD from the MIT Media Lab.
Erhardt’s record of research addresses ethics and responsibility in engineering, civic learning, and the design and use of technologies for democratic participation. His scholarship spans computing, science and technology studies, education, and philosophy, and has contributed to national conversations on ethics and public interest technology in STEM education. He regularly collaborates with nonprofit and public-sector partners seeking to build ethical and accountable systems, and recently served as Research Director of the AI for Impact program at the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, where he mentored student teams designing human-centered and ethically grounded AI tools in partnership with state government agencies.
Beyond academia, Erhardt serves in local elected office as a Trustee of the Needham Free Public Library and a member of the Needham, Massachusetts Town Meeting (municipal legislature).
Website: erhardtgraeff.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/erhardt
Academia.edu: olin.academia.edu/erhardt
ResearchGate: researchgate.net/profile/Erhardt_Graeff
SSRN: ssrn.com/author=2225702
Zotero: zotero.org/erhardt
