Fordham Law School announced that Olivier Sylvain, a professor of communications, information, and administrative law, and the director of the McGannon Center for Communications Research and the academic director of the Center for Law and Information Policy, has been named a senior advisor to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan. During his appointment to the FTC, Sylvain will advise on rulemaking and emerging tech, among other issues.
On the appointment, Olivier Sylvain said: “I’m thrilled that Chair Khan and the FTC leadership has asked me to join them to think through some of the most vexing problems in our networked information economy today. My work at Fordham and elsewhere has prepared me for much of this, but I never imagined I’d work in a federal agency – let alone in this way. I just hope that I am up to the task.”
“Olivier Sylvain is an inspiring teacher and a superb scholar. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on the legal and regulatory landscape governing new communications technologies and information privacy. We will miss him at Fordham Law while he is on leave, but I cannot think of anyone better to guide the FTC through these critically important issues. We are all excited about the important contributions he will make,” added Matthew Diller, dean of Fordham Law School.
Olivier is a Professor of Law at Fordham University. His research is in communications law and policy. His most recent writing, scholarship, and public speaking engagements are on liability under the Communications Decency Act, the social impacts of artificial intelligence, and community-owned networked computing. In 2020, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awarded him a grant to support this work.
Olivier teaches legislation & regulation, administrative law, information law, U.S. data protection law & privacy, and information law-related courses. At Fordham, he has been the Director of the McGannon Center for Communications Research, the Academic Director of the Center for Law and Information Policy, and a research affiliate at the Center on Race, Law, and Justice. Before entering academia, Olivier was a Karpatkin Fellow in the National Legal Office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City and a litigation associate at Jenner & Block, LLC, in Washington, D.C. Until September 2021, he was the Board President of the ACLU’s New York affiliate and sat on the Academic Advisory Board for the Open Markets Institute and the Advisory Committee for the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.
He is a graduate of Williams College, the Georgetown University Law Center, and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University.