Sada Spence

Sada Spence is a Master in Design Studies candidate in the Publics domain at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She graduated from Hunter College with a BS in Social Design in 2019 and has spent over four years as a digital strategist, working with clients like Bloomberg News and Sanofi.

Her work in digital advertising revealed how social media platforms function as de facto public squares, spaces where people gather to deliberate on almost everything despite being privately owned. Her current research investigates alternatives to commercial social media platforms and examines how digital infrastructures mediate access to information and shape publics both online and offline. She brings to the Informed Public project an industry perspective on how algorithmic feeds prioritize engagement over an informed citizenry.