About Us
Starling Lab is an academic research center focused on establishing the provenance and authenticity of digital media to address the emerging problems of our AI age.
Co-founded by the Stanford University Department of Electrical Engineering and USC Shoah Foundation, Starling operates at the intersection of technology and human rights.
We convene historians, journalists and lawyers alongside cryptographers, engineers and AI experts to build new systems of trust using web3 principles.
Our Vision
We envision a world where information is reliable and trustworthy. Open-source standards will enable both consumers and experts to understand the context and provenance of digital media, creating unprecedented transparency and clarity for humanity’s most essential records.
Our Mission
Starling Lab illuminates the future of data integrity and trust. We develop technical and ethical prototypes that empower citizens and civil society to pursue accountability, preserve culture, and protect privacy through interdisciplinary research spanning journalism, law, and history.
What We Do
We harness advanced technologies —including cryptography, Web 3 protocols, and decentralized ledgers— to prototype real-world solutions for content authentication. As a non-profit research lab, we release open-source tools that securely capture, store, and verify content while collaborating with leading thinkers to drive industry transformation.
Introducing the Starling Lab
(click to play)
Our Research
We seek to understand how we can create roots of trust and preserve digital knowledge. We aim to preserve data with:
Provenance
The lineage or history of the origin, changes, and custody of a digital item. Provenance includes information about where something came from, how it was created, and who supports the claims about something’s authenticity.
Authenticity
The true nature of a digital artifact. Something that is genuine, not counterfeit, and free from tampering. Authentic data is a trustworthy and reliable representation of the original version of data.
Integrity
Data that is authenticated and follows a set of principles, using capture, store, verify to ensure it is accurate, consistent, and unaltered. A digital asset has integrity if its data and metadata is tamper-evident and can be cryptographically verified.
Our History
Starling Lab is the first academic research center exploring the intersection of web3 and human rights.
The Starling research program began in October 2018 as a joint initiative between Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and USC Shoah Foundation. It was formally launched in June 2021 to bring a dedicated staff to expand our capabilities and establish a lasting network of civil society and industry affiliates, working across academic programs in history, law, and journalism.
The Lab is funded with support from Stanford and USC and a multi-year sponsored research agreement from Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, alongside the non-profit donor-advised fund from Ampathy and the IOG Research Hub. Initial funds have been used to hire staff, support independent fellowships, and develop prototypes.
Team
Faculty Leadership
Lab Leadership and Staff
Jonathan Dotan
Founding Director
Mike Caronna
Deputy Director
Basile Simon
Director
Adam Rose
Senior Fellow
Ann Grimes
Director, Journalism Fellowships
Benedict Lau
Chief Technology Officer
Emeritus
Work With Us
When Starling Lab has an opening, we post on the recruiting board maintained by the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web.
In addition to our own job descriptions, they list openings at organizations that we often partner with. Most of these non-Starling opportunities are also connected to Web3.
Apply for a Fellowship with Starling Lab, a research center anchored at Stanford’s School of Engineering and USC’s Shoah Foundation.
Propose your Journalism, Law, or History fellowship using our capture, store verify framework. Starling Lab is interested in supporting projects that advance History, Law, and Journalism through new applications of technology and open source tools, with grants of up to $20,000
Community
We are part of a community of organizations all striving towards shared goals of data sovereignty, integrity, and authenticity.
Investigative Commons
TUMO
IIPC
Storj
Cogency Lab
Catchlight
WITNESS
HURIDOCS
IPFS
Numbers
DFRLab
Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web
Pixelrace
The Reckoning Project
Internet Archive
Blockchain Law for Social Good Center at USF
Webrecorder
Hala Systems
Harvard University Library Innovation Lab
ProofMode
