Zachary Katz, the respected Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission, has been appointed a Senior Fellow of the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The appointment begins in July 2013 following his planned departure from the FCC.

As a senior fellow, Katz will help develop, lead and advise on programs and research projects related to broadband, mobile and media initiatives. He joins a distinguished group of CCLP senior fellows that include journalists and media executives such as Cinny Kennard, Adam Clayton Powell III and Narda Zacchino, authors and policymakers such as Dan Glickman, Richard Reeves and Morley Winograd and pioneering leadership scholar Warren Bennis, among others.

“I am excited to be joining USC Annenberg and contributing to the important work of its Center on Communication Leadership & Policy,” Katz said. “I look forward to working with this outstanding community of leaders and scholars to help advance the power of communications technologies and media to serve the public interest.”

“Zac Katz is a brilliant legal mind who has been engaged in many of the major communication policy debates of recent years,” said Geoffrey Cowan, CCLP director, USC University Professor and president of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. “He brings a wealth of experience to our work in this area. I am delighted that he has agreed to serve as a senior fellow.”

As FCC Chief of Staff, Katz has played a key role in the agency’s policymaking agenda. He previously served as Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Chief Counsel and led a number of high-priority initiatives, including protecting Internet openness and creating the Connect America Fund, the largest broadband infrastructure program ever established.

Katz joined the FCC in 2009 from the White House Counsel’s Office and previously practiced law at Munger, Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles. Mr. Katz served as a law clerk for Judge Kim M. Wardlaw of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after receiving his law degree from Yale, where he was Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Law Journal and a leader of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. Before law school he worked with technology companies at a strategy consulting and investment firm in Silicon Valley.

About the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy

Based at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy is a policy center that conducts academic research and organizes programs to develop ways in which communication leadership, policy, technology and mobile innovation can contribute to a more informed electorate and a better world. For more information, visit http://communicationleadership.usc.edu.