Lana Swartz, a Data & Society affiliate, is an associate professor of media studies and a Shannon Center mid-career fellow at the University of Virginia. She studies the pasts and futures of infrastructures, livelihoods, financial literacy, and consumer protection in the digital economy, and is currently writing a book on scams. Swartz’s 2020 book New Money: How Payment Became Social Media was named one of the “greatest tech books of all time” by The Verge. She has also published writing on the Diners Club Card, the early politics of bitcoin, blockchain dreams, central bank digital currencies, and  ICO scams. Swartz has held fellowships with the Berggruen Institute, the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, and the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, PBS Nova, TANK, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications, and she regularly speaks to academic, industry, and public audiences.