Lila Bailey, Counsel, ccLearn
Started: February 2009
Lila comes to ccLearn from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she practiced Internet-related litigation and counseling, focusing on novel copyright and privacy issues. She previously worked for the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, where she devoted significant energy to her pro bono work for the Internet Archive. Lila was also an Intellectual Property Fellow with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2007. She earned her Juris Doctor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and holds a BA degree in philosophy from Brown University.
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Fred Benenson, Product Manager
Started: June 2008
While studying philosophy and computer science, Fred co-founded the Free Culture @ NYU chapter of Students for Free Culture, an international student movement focused on copyright reform, technology advocacy, and digital activism and currently serves on the board of the organization. In 2005 Fred staged the first-of-their-kind DRM protests, and continued working with his chapter to organize several conferences, art exhibitions and lectures focused on free culture. In April 2008 Fred launched his thesis for his masters at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program named Cause Caller; a web service designed to help citizens organize virtual phone banks using VoIP-based telephony and a semantic media wiki. He is based out of New York City and spends his spare time with the Rubik’s cube, bicycles, and cameras.
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Ahrash N. Bissell, Executive Director, ccLearn
Started: June 2007
Ahrash Bissell comes to CC from Duke University (Durham, NC) where he was a Research Associate in Biology and the Assistant Director of the Academic Resource Center. He received his BS in Biology in 1994 from UC San Diego, followed by a Ph.D. in Biology in 2001 from the University of Oregon, where he pursued research on animal behavior and evolutionary genetics. While he has continued an active research and teaching program in biology, the bulk of his time in recent years was focused on educational research and technology, pedagogical and curriculum development, assessment (with a focus on critical-thinking skills and metacognition), and facilitating interdisciplinary research, especially via open dissemination, data sharing, and web-based “communities of expertise.” He is also a board member for InnoWorks and a research consultant for the Alexandria Archive Institute.
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John Doig, Software Engineer
Started: March 2009
John Doig joins the Creative Commons team as a Software Engineer. Originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, John graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science. His interests include open-source software, graphic design, local music, and riding BMX.
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Allison Domicone, Development Assistant
Started: April 2008
Allison graduated from the University of San Francisco in May of 2008, with a double major in French and International Studies. Her passions include traveling any and everywhere, spending hours cooking meals that may or may not end up tasting good, attending live performances of any kind, and dabbling with dance classes from time to time. She also does volunteer work on the side for an inspiring international non-profit, Akili Dada, that provides scholarships and mentoring activities to underprivileged young Kenyan women. She is thrilled to be joining the Creative Commons team and looks forward to helping the vision grow!
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Patricia Escalera, Office Manager, International
Started: July 2007
Patricia Escalera is originally from Mexico, but she moved to Berlin in 2005 to unite with her German husband. Patricia graduated from Minnesota State University with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and prior to joining Creative Commons she worked with an organization establishing links between Latin American and German culture, science and business.
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Joi Ito, CEO
Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons, and founder and CEO of Neoteny, a venture capital firm focused on personal communications and enabling technologies. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time ranked him as a member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the “50 Stars of Asia” by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” for 2002.
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Nathan Kinkade, Web Engineer
Started: June 2007
Nathan has worked and tinkered in the area of computers and technology for around the past ten years. He has served as an Information Technology Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Belize, and holds a B.A. in history from Emory University.
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Alex Kozak, Program Assistant, ccLearn
Started: April 2009
Alex Kozak is a 2009 graduate of UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Philosophy. At Berkeley he developed an interest in the philosophy of science and scientific confirmation, leading him to co-found Students for Free Culture at Berkeley (host of the 2008 Free Culture conference) and become Editor-in-Chief of the Harvest Moon Undergraduate Philosophy Journal. While Alex’s main passion is using technology to advance knowledge and enable education, he is also a musician, Pd and Max/MSP designer, sci-fi reader, and a big fan of the comma.
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Mike Linksvayer, Vice President, Creative Commons
Started: April 2003
Mike Linksvayer joined Creative Commons as CTO. Previously he co-founded Bitzi. He has over ten years’ experience as an enterprise software, web, and multimedia developer and consultant and holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Catharina Maracke, Director, International
Started: October 2006
Catharina studied law in Germany and graduated from the University of Kiel and the Hamburg Court of Appeal with the first and second state examination. While studying she obtained a scholarship from the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in Munich to write her PhD thesis on the History of the German Copyright Act of 1965. During the legal preparatory service she worked for several German Courts, the German Patent Office and the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Toronto. After finishing her legal education, Catharina worked for the law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP in their Munich office. Afterwards she spent three months at the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo where she did research and taught design protection and copyright law.
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Thinh Nguyen, Counsel, Science Commons
Started: March 2006
As Counsel for Science Commons, Thinh is responsible for advising on legal issues relating to Science Commons and for implementing its strategy and operations. Thinh joined Science Commons after working as licensing attorney, and then corporate counsel, for Business Objects, a maker of business intelligence and reporting software. He also worked as licensing attorney for Crystal Decisions, Inc., prior to its acquisition by Business Objects. Before that, he practiced as an associate in the Technology Transactions Group of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, a Silicon Valley law firm, where his work focused mainly on licensing transactions involving strategic collaborations and joint ventures, particularly in life sciences. Thinh received a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Harvard University in 1996 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1999. He is admitted to practice in California.
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Jane Park, Communications Coordinator, ccLearn
Started: January 2008
Jane is the Communications Coordinator for ccLearn. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where she acquired her BA in Philosophy and minor in Creative Writing. While at Cal, she worked in conjunction with AmeriCorps and the YMCA, promoting higher education to first generation college-bound youth. Around the same time, she found the National Writing Project, where she assisted in event-planning, site development and finance. Outside of school and work, she adopted an affinity for red wine, a yuppie food life style, and a love of night hikes in the Berkeley hills.
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Diane Peters, General Counsel
Started: May 2008
As General Counsel for CC, Diane oversees the organization’s legal strategy, affairs and projects. She serves on the board of the Software Freedom Law Center. Prior to joining CC, she served as general counsel for Open Source Development Labs (now, the Linux Foundation), and thereafter was legal counsel to Mozilla. She is experienced at providing strategic advice and leadership on an array of IP issues impacting communities and the technology industry, including open source projects, FOSS licensing, and IP reform efforts and policy. Diane received a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1986 and a J.D. from Washington University in 1989. She is based in Portland, Oregon.
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Melissa Reeder, Development Manager
Started: July 2006
Melissa, a native Texan, re-located to San Francisco from Providence, RI to work at CC. She volunteers weekly for First Exposures, a youth mentoring program, where she teaches black and white photography. She holds a MA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Art and Design Education and a BFA in studio art—photography from Texas State University. She also likes to laugh occasionally.
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Jonathan Rees, Principal Scientist, Neurocommons Project
Started: January 2006
Jonathan Rees is a computer scientist with interests in biological knowledge representation, the Semantic Web, open access publishing, and software technology. Prior to joining Science Commons he worked in the computational biology group at Millennium Pharmaceuticals on large-scale curated protein interaction networks and their use in the analysis of high-throughput experimental data. Jonathan is also an officer of the Cambridge Entomological Club and has initiated a project to bring 100 volumes of its journal Psyche — one of America’s oldest natural history journals — onto the web. He earned a B.S. in computer science from Yale and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.
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Alex Roberts, Senior Designer
Started: November 2005
Alex Roberts is the senior designer for Creative Commons, developing graphics on the web and print. He graduated from the Art Institute of California — San Francisco, and brings many years of experience in open source, and design. Originally from England, he now lives in the Bay Area with his cat, enjoying photography, motorcycles, and tinkering with gadgets.
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Alan Ruttenberg, Principal Scientist, Neurocommons Project
Started: February 2007
Alan Ruttenberg’s interest lies in structuring and using biological knowledge to answer scientific questions and to interpret experimental data using computational methods. He is involved in a number of open biomedical ontology efforts, including BioPAX for representing molecular and cellular pathways, OBI, the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations, and BFO the Basic Formal Ontology that will form the upper level ontology for the OBO foundry. Alan is an active participant in the W3C Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group. Alan’s graduate work was at the MIT Media Lab in the Music and Cognition Group, and he has an undergraduate degree in Physics and Mathematics from Brandeis University. Highlights of previous employment include stints at Thinking Machines and Interval Research. Prior to joining Science Commons, Alan worked at Millennium Pharmaceuticals as a senior scientist in the computational biology group for 8.5 years.
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Ani Sittig, Office Manager
Started: August 2007
Ani Sittig is the office manager at Creative Commons. Originally from Southern California, she received her Political Science degree from U.C. Berkeley and became a happy transplant to the Bay Area. She has worked as an assistant in event planning and as a third-grade teacher. In her free time she likes reading old books, watching Cal sports and finding interesting places to eat out.
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Eric Steuer, Creative Director
Started: November 2005
Eric develops arts and culture projects for Creative Commons. He is a contributing editor for Wired and writes for The Fader. He is the co-founder of Sneakmove Recordings and is in a hip hop group called Meanest Man Contest.
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Kaitlin Thaney, Program Manager, Science Commons
Started: December 2006
A Rochester, New York native, Kaitlin comes to Science Commons with a background deeply rooted in news and policy. Prior to Science Commons, she worked as the communications coordinator for MIT iCampus, a research alliance between the university and Microsoft, centered on education technology. She also spent time working as a journalism intern for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, VA. Prior to that, Kaitlin worked as a correspondent for The Boston Globe’s City/Region section. Kaitlin did her undergraduate work at Northeastern University, where she received two degrees — one in journalism and the other in political science. Her interests lie in open access publishing, data sharing and licensing issues, and the burgeoning open science movement. She is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Michelle Thorne, Project Manager, International
Started: July 2007
Michelle holds a B.A. in Critical Social Thought and German Studies from Mount Holyoke College, where she completed an honors thesis on authorship, originality, and American copyright law. Keen to fuse theory with praxis, Michelle co-organizes the Berlin salon series Openeverything Fokus and free-content scavenger hunt, Wikis Take Berlin. Michelle has also studied at the University of Leipzig, and following her pledge to learn a language every decade, she is currently pursuing courses in Arabic. An avid scholar-athlete, Michelle co-founded an international soccer team and played for several seasons on the European Olympic Development Team. Despite many relocations, she still calls Heidelberg, Germany home.
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John Wilbanks, Vice President, Science Commons
Started: October 2004
As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark.

John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He is a research affiliate at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the project on Mathematics and Computation. John also serves on the Advisory Boards of the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central, the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Open Knowledge Definition, and the International Advisory Board of the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities awards. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fedora Commons digital repository organization.
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Nathan Yergler, CTO
Started: June 2004
Nathan Yergler (yergler.net) joined Creative Commons as a software engineer. Previously he held a faculty position at Canterbury School, where he pioneered the use of Python in their Computer Science courses, developing both introductory and advanced elective curricula. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University (Fort Wayne).
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Jennifer Yip, Operations Director
Started: October 2005
Jennifer Yip hails from the midwest. She holds a Bachelors’ degree in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. She came to Creative Commons with several years of experience in research and administration for non-profit institutions. She enjoys the bay area’s temperate climate and cultural offerings.
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Part-Time

Kevin Birtchnell, Chief Financial Officer
Started: March 2007
Kevin J Birtchnell has been the Chief Financial Officer for Creative Commons Corporation since 2007. Kevin brings over 17 years experience of financial, accounting and business management. He has extensive experience of successfully growing a business, of various types of fund raising and of managing all of the significant business functions. Kevin graduated in Science from London University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant (with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales). Originally from England, he now lives in San Francisco where he manages various business ventures, has an active California Real Estate License and he is a member of the adjunct faculty at Golden Gate University where he teaches Accounting and Finance.
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Diane Cabell, Corporate Secretary
Started: 2001
Diane Cabell, the Corporate Secretary for Creative Commons, was the founder of the Clinical Program in Cyberlaw at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. She is a co-director of Chlling Effects and sits on the advisory boards of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at University of Ottawa and the Center for Law and Innovation at the University of Maine School of Law.
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Greg Grossmeier, Community Assistant
Started: June 2008
Greg Grossmeier is a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information specializing in Information Policy along with Library and Information Service. Greg completed his undergraduate degree in Anthropology with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. Along with his academic interests, Greg is the leader of the Ubuntu Michigan Local Community Team and volunteers for the OPEN:Michigan Initiative working on Open CourseWare. He has also spent time making your sandwiches, taking your kids out for week long trips in the wilderness, and editing open access scholarly journals.
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Cameron Parkins, Culture Program Assistant
Started: June 2007
Cameron works on cultural projects and community outreach for Creative Commons. A graduate of USC (B.A., International Relations), he founded the school’s Students for Free Culture chapter and took an active interest in issues of copyright and content ownership through his enrollment at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy. Outside of his work at CC, Cameron enjoys writing music, sleeping, eating, and playing basketball.
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Donatella Della Ratta, Arab World Media and Development Manager
Started: April 2008
Donatella has got a background of ten years’ experience in Arab media research. In 2000 she wrote her first book on Arab satellite channels, “Media Oriente”, followed in 2005 by a monography on Al Jazeera. She was advisor of Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona for the art exhibition “Occidente desde Oriente” in 2005 and she created “West by the Arab media“, a two day festival of screenings and debates on how Arab TV channels picture the “West”, launched in 2008 in Rome and to be held in 2009 in Brussels. She has lectured on Arab media in many events held, among the others, in MIP TV Cannes Market, Brussels’ EU Parliament, Linz Ars Electronica, Aula 06. She loves Arabic language and goes crazy for musalsalat, especially those dubbed in Syrian dialect. She leaves somewhere between Rome and the Arab world.
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Virginia Rutledge, Special Counsel
Started: October 2007
Virginia joined Creative Commons as Vice President and General Counsel from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, where her practice included intellectual property, antitrust, art and entertainment law. She has represented major global clients in many sectors of the media and content industries, and has extensive pro bono and nonprofit experience. As VP and GC, Virginia saw Creative Commons through its fifth year anniversary development drive and led its successful defense in litigation. In July 2008, she became Special Counsel, leading special legal projects from New York City, where she is based. Virginia holds a J.D. from Berkeley and an M.Phil. in art history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the current chair of the Art Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
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Frank Tobia, Software Developer
Started: June 2008
Frank Tobia is an undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, studying Computer and Systems Engineering as well as Economics. Frank hails from New Jersey and is still deciding what to do with himself, with grad school and law school at the top of the list. He is an active editor of Wikipedia, and maintains interests in intellectual property law, economic theory, wine, and memorizing various texts and numerical constants. He also happens to be a programmer, favoring Python over less divinely inspired languages.
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