Our Team

Christopher J. Karr

Technology Director

Prior to BRIC, Chris founded a successful research software consultancy (Audacious Software), where he served research clients for over fifteen years creating open-source platforms, frameworks, and methodologies to tackle research challenges in psychology, political science, economics, and health care. He earned his master's degree from Northwestern University's Media, Technology & Society program, where his work focused on context-aware computing powered by passive sensing and machine learning. In addition to his research work, he has also served as the CTO for two technology startups.

Ericka Menchen-Trevino, Ph.D.

Executive Director

Before co-founding BRIC, Ericka was an Assistant Professor at American University in Washington, D.C. (2015-2023), and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands (2012-2015). She is also a lecturer in the communication department at the University of Illinois at Chicago (2025-Present). She earned her Ph.D. from the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Dr. Menchen-Trevino has published academic articles on political communication and computational methods. She also developed software for collecting digital behavioral data with interactive visualizations.