Barbara Marchiori de Assis on Helping Governments Navigate the Digital Age

July 24, 2026

Barbara Marchiori de Assis MPA '14

When Barbara Marchiori de Assis MPA ’14 came to Cornell to pursue her Master of Public Administration, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, smart cities, and the Internet of Things were only beginning to enter policy discussions. Today, as a Cyber and AI Governance Advisor, she works with governments and international organizations around the world to design the policies and governance frameworks that guide how emerging technologies are developed, deployed, and governed.

Her career has taken her from international organizations in Washington, D.C., to consulting across Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa. Along the way, she has helped countries develop national cybersecurity strategies, advised international organizations on digital governance, and researched how governments can play a stronger role in shaping global AI policy.

For Barbara, the Brooks School’s interdisciplinary curriculum provided the foundation to evaluate complex evidence, bridge technical and policy perspectives, and build a career at the forefront of cybersecurity and AI governance.

Q. How did the Brooks School equip you with the skills and perspective you use in your work today?

What the Brooks School gave me above all was interdisciplinary range.

I took courses in statistics, econometrics, economics, law and regulation, city and regional planning, and both quantitative and qualitative methods. That left me able to move across fields and judge each on its own terms.

In practice, this means I can look at a project and assess whether it is likely to work, whether the research methods behind a policy are sound, and whether the evidence used to justify it supports the claim being made.

The program also introduced me to technology policy well before much of it reached the mainstream, from smart cities and e-government to big data, the Internet of Things, and the implications of self-driving cars at a time when few papers had been written on the subject.

That early exposure taught me to reason about emerging technologies rather than wait for a field to settle, which is most of what my work asks of me now.

Q. Why was Cornell the right place to help you achieve your goals?

The experience that shaped my path most directly was an internship in Washington, D.C., during the program.

It gave me a foothold in the world of international organizations and direct exposure to how policy is made inside them. It was also the reason I was later able to join one, which became the setting for much of my early career.

What it prepared me for was less any single skill than the way real institutions work, where decisions are shaped by mandates, relationships, and constraints that no classroom fully conveys.

Q. What advice would you give students who want to make a meaningful impact in your field?

Build deep, transferable skills, and then stay open to where they take you.

When I was at Cornell, the practitioners who came to speak with us often described how they had ended up in their fields. What struck me was how many had gotten there by staying open to opportunities they had not planned for. More than 10 years later, I understand what they meant.

I had no background in cybersecurity when I applied for my first role in it and no particular interest in the field at the time, but I had transferable skills and decided to be open to something new.

What let me make something of it was that I brought a policy perspective into rooms full of technical specialists and could translate between the two. That is often where the real value sits.

The field you land in matters less than your willingness to move toward unfamiliar problems and work between the technical and the political, since that is what makes you useful wherever you end up.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Barbara Marchiori de Assis graduated from Cornell in 2014 with a Master of Public Administration, prior to the establishment of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. References to the Brooks School reflect the school’s current name.