Jeremy Ely McKey

I am an independent researcher affiliated with Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP). My current work focuses on the political economy of digital public infrastructure, especially payment systems. More broadly, I am interested in how technology can be governed democratically. I write about these issues on Digital Rails, a Substack that I co-author.Previously, I spent five years in philanthropy at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where I worked primarily on issues related to U.S. democracy. There, I helped build the Trust for Civic Life, an organization that supports local civic infrastructure. In the 2025–26 academic year, I am also a Policy Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.