Our Mission

The Revival Lab is a research and storytelling initiative that demands information justice, dignity, and opportunity for all. We provide investigatory support for social movements and platform visionary leaders working at the intersection of technology and media.

Our Team

David Dexter, Project Director

David is the Project Director for The Revival Lab, assuming the role following the passing of the project’s founder, Brandi Collins-Dexter. He manages all aspects of the launch and growth of all of The Revival Lab’s programs, including The Revival Letter newsletter. David has almost two decades of nonprofit communications and fundraising experience. He has worked in a variety of fields, including prison reentry, health care advocacy, housing and homelessness, climate change and the environment, and nonprofit journalism. Long ago, he started his career as a sportswriter for The Progress-Index, a small daily newspaper in Petersburg, Va.  

Eesha Ramanujam, Project Advisor

Eesha is a student in the Master of Arts Program in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago on the Conceptual & Historical Studies of Science track. She was recently a Research Fellow for Race, Media, and Tech at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center as well as a consultant for the Disinfo Defense League, where her research focused on the need for political and cultural changes to accompany disinformation intervention or inoculation. Eesha also helped plan the inaugural Outbraving conference, which convened Black women scholars and advocates working on media and tech accountability. Eesha was previously a Senior Campaign Researcher at Color Of Change, supporting campaigns to build Black political power with strategic corporate accountability research and media analysis. Her research priorities included the economies of white nationalism, online misogynoir, racist culture, labor, public health, housing injustice, and discriminatory algorithms. She has also conducted trainings in power research, online search tools, power mapping, data management, and other skills.

Brian Friedberg, Project Advisor

Brian Friedberg is a Senior Researcher at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, a graduate student in Social Anthropology at Harvard University, and the coauthor of Meme Wars (2022). Blending ethnographic methods and investigative techniques, his research focuses on alternative media, political commentary, and unpopular culture, particularly their impact on American political communication and organization.