Luis Hestres

Luis E. Hestres is a Research Fellow at FrameWorks Institute. At FrameWorks, Luis researches a number of social scientific issues, including children’s issues, aging, urban poverty, vaccinations, and others. As an academic, Luis’ research focused on the intersection of technology, political communication and mobilization, Internet freedom, and social change. Topics he has researched include: how different types of advocacy organizations use the Internet to communicate with their supporters and mobilize them; how the policies and technical features that information intermediaries like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, etc. implement affect freedom of expression online and the work of advocacy organizations; the different ways that advocacy organizations communicate online with their supporters about climate change; and online political communication and organizing as an emerging profession. His work has been published in the journals New Media & Society, International Journal of Communication, Social Media + Society, Environmental Communication, Environmental Politics, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication, among other venues. Luis holds a PhD in communication and an MFA in film production from American University, a masters in communication, culture and technology from Georgetown University, and a BA in communication from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in his native Puerto Rico. Before becoming a researcher, Luis worked for more than 10 years as a digital political strategist, working on issues such as health care reform, nuclear waste, and climate change.