Helen A. Hayes

Helen A. Hayes is the Associate Director, Policy of the Center for Media, Technology, and Democracy at McGill University, where she leads the Center's policy research and strategic initiatives on digital governance, artificial intelligence, and online harms. Her work bridges academic research, public policy, and public engagement, including through her role as a Mila AI Policy Fellow. Hayes is a 2026 recipient of Forbes 30 Under 30 (Education) for her work engaging young people in digital policymaking on artificial intelligence and social media, as well as for her teaching in undergraduate and graduate programs at McGill University. Her work has been published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Interfaces, Election Law Journal, and Lecture Notes in Computer Science, among others. She is the co-author of Voting Online: Technology and Democracy in Municipal Elections (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024), and a co-editor of Regulating Digital (University of Toronto Press, 2026) and Trust and Trustworthiness: Evaluations of Online Voting (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2026).