The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
Biography
Layane is a PhD candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School specializing in development, labor, and behavioral economics. She uses natural and field experiments to study digital technologies' impact in developing countries, with a focus on how these technologies interact with local cultures and norms. Her main research has focused on the impact of social media on female entrepreneurship in the context of Jordan.
During her PhD, Layane has taught executive education courses and undergraduate classes at Harvard, including classes on Survey Research Methods and on the Economics of Social Media. Before her PhD, she was a researcher at JPAL MIT and spent time in Kenya working on digital financial inclusion projects. As a Fulbright scholar, she pursued a Masters' degree in International and Development Economics at Yale University.