critical infrastructure lab

upcoming activities

open reading group The Root & Router Society Reading Group

bi- weekly tuesday session 16:00 – 17:00 cest/cet* (once every two weeks)
facilitated by niels@criticalinfralab.net, fieke@criticalinfralab.net, maxigas@criticalinfralab.net

meet up here (just show up, no prior notification is needed): https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/6365963924
take notes here: https://pad.criticalinfralab.net/unz6CPM9SpieqIlkXf-Oq
sign up for the mailinglist here (don’t forget to click the link in the confirmation email):
https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/infrastructure-readinggroup
and a calendar event (add to your Google calendar or download an .ics file)

Books for 2026:
– Extraction: The frontiers of green capitalism by Thea Riofrancos
– Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Big Tech and Planetary Crisis by Nick Dyer-Witheford & Alessandra Mularoni
– The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba by Gustav Cederlöf
– The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade by Deborah Cowen

January 6th – Extraction: Prologue + Chapter 1 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Preface
January 20th – Extraction: Chapter 2 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Chapter 1
February 3rd – Extraction: Chapter 3 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Chapter 2
February 17th – Extraction: Chapter 4 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Chapter 3
March 3rd – Extraction: Chapter 5 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Chapter 4
March 17th – Extraction: Chapter 6 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Chapter 5
March 31st – Extraction: Chapter 7 – Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Coda
April 14th – Extraction: Chapter 8 & 9
April 28th – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Introduction – Deadly Life of Logistics: Introduction
May 12th – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Chapter 1 – Deadly Life of Logistics: Chapter 1
May 26th – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Chapter 2 – Deadly Life of Logistics: Chapter 2
June 9th – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Chapter 3 – Deadly Life of Logistics: Chapter 3
June 23rd – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Chapter 4 – Deadly Life of Logistics: Chapter 4
July 7th – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Chapter 5 – Deadly Life of Logistics: Chapter 5
July 21st – Low-Carbon Contradiction: Conclusion – Deadly Life of Logistics: Conclusion

If you want to see what we have read before, check the page of the previous infrastructure reading group, and the environment reading group.

* We use CEST between the last Sunday of March until the last Sunday of October, then we switch back to CET.

infrastructure walk Data centre walk – Sloterdijk hyperscaler March 6 March 2026

workshop MaKING Printed Circuit Boards with Wild Clay March 2026

event Eco-feminist decolonial hardware March 2026

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It is an open secret that the hardware in our smart devices contains not only plastics but also conflict minerals such as copper and gold. Technology is not neutral!

Artists and researchers Patrícia J. Reis and Stefanie Wuschitz investigate on alternative hardware from locally sourced materials, from a feminist perspective, to develop and speculate upon renewable practices. They call it Feminist Hardware!

Through these lenses, they researched on fair-traded, ethical, biodegradable hardware for environmental justice, building circuits that use ancient community-centred crafts encouraging de-colonial thinking, market forces to be disobeyed, and future technologies to be imagined.

In this lecture, they will share their research process behind Feminist Hardware, and present artistic alternatives that aim to reconnect technology with ecology, community, and care.

Join us on March 30th for the lecture and discussion on eco-feminist decolonial hardware with Patrícia J. Reis and Stefanie Wuschitz. The lecture will take place from 17.00 at the Bushuis. Please RSVP here

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About the speakers

Patrícia J. Reis (b. 1981, Lisbon, PT) is a Vienna-based media artist and researcher whose practice explores human and more-than-human entanglements with technology through feminist hacking, sensory interaction, and embodied interfaces.

Her installations investigate touch, consent, and care, often inviting intimate, activeparticipation. Reis studied Painting (ESAD, 2004), Media Art (MA, Lusófona University, 2011), and completed a Ph.D. in Art at the University of Évora (2016). She was a fellow of the FCT of Portugal (2011–15) and Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Beja (2006–12). From 2020–23 she was postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna within the project Feminist hacking: building circuits as an artistic
practice, and guest researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute, TU Berlin. Since 2015, she has lectured at the Digital Arts Department, University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she currently leads the FWF Elise Richter PEEK project Hacking the body as the black box.

Since 2012, she has been a board member of Mz Baltazar’s Lab*, Vienna’s feminist artist-run space. Reis has exhibited widely, received the Outstanding Artist Award in Media Art (AT, 2021), and participated in international programs and residencies, including IMPACT ART San Francisco, Banff Centre (CA), HWK Delmenhorst, and Edith-Russ-Haus (DE).

Find out more about Patricia: www.patriciajreis.com | https://www.instagram.com/patricia_j_reis/ | https://hackingthebody.org/

Stefanie Wuschitz (b. 1981, Vienna, Austria) is a data-research artist based in Vienna. Her scholarship generates data that shapes her artistic output. She investigates the entanglement of gender, technology and power. Within the young, Eurocentric field of data studies, her current projects focus on a blind spot of South East Asia: Indonesia’s position within fast shifting techno empires. Her degrowth inspired artistic method entails upcyling, salvaging sustainable, locally sourced materials to create ecofeminist interactive art installations. Her drawings and animations explore new forms of storytelling, knowledge transfer and documentary.

She graduated in the MFA program Transmedia Arts in 2006 (Brigitte Kowanz) and completed her Master’s at NYU 2008 at Tisch School of the Arts in NYC. In 2009 she founded the hacklab and collective Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory. She completed her Doctorate on Feminist Hackerspaces at TU Vienna in 2014. Since then she has held post-doctoral positions at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, TU Vienna, Universität der Künste Berlin, and TU Berlin. She conducted several arts-based research projects as PI (titled Feminist Hacking, Salon of Open Secrets, Coded Feminisms in Indonesia). Her artwork was featured in solo exhibitions, film festivals and international venues.

Find out more about Stefanie: https://stefaniewuschitz.at/ | https://www.instagram.com/stefanie_wuschitz/

talk - presentation - panel The State of the Internet 2026 with Fieke Jansen April 2026

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During the State of the Internet, Waag Futurelab takes the annual temperature of the internet. This edition focuses on AI and the limits of our planet. The lecture will be given by Fieke Jansen, co-founder of the Critical Infrastructure Lab.

Generative AI and other AI applications are currently being added to our technology everywhere. From search engines and social media to office software and urban infrastructure: AI is everywhere, whether we like it or not. Our digital landscape is changing significantly, but our physical landscape is perhaps changing even more dramatically. The arrival of large data centres, known as hyperscalers, is putting considerable pressure on our power grid and water supply. Local residents are seeing their energy bills rise and their water supply become less reliable.

This year, we are looking at what lies behind our screens: what impact does the growing appetite for data centres and AI computing power have on our living environment, and what are the consequences for the world outside our screens? The possibilities of AI seem limitless, but our planet’s natural resources are finite.

About Fieke Jansen

This year the keynote lecture will be given by Fieke Jansen, co-principal researcher at the Critical Infrastructure Lab at the University of Amsterdam and co-lead of the Green Screen Coalition. Jansen investigates how the infrastructure of our digital world, data centres and AI influence the environment, raw material use and climate.

About Waag Futurelab

Waag Futurelab is engaged in regenerative technology by developing research and design methods that detach technology from purely extractive models and instead make it restorative and circular. In collaboration with the Critical Infrastructure Lab, Waag investigates how technical systems can be designed in such a way that they not only extract value from natural and social resources, but also give back: think of the use of biomaterials, a focus on repair and extending lifespan, and public values that strengthen local ecosystems and social initiatives. Through practice-oriented research and participatory design processes, Waag brings together knowledge from science, art and citizen initiatives to realise technologies that contribute to long-term regeneration rather than depletion.

https://www.waag.org/en/event/state-internet-2026-fieke-jansen

workshop Statecraft, Sovereignty and Digital Government April 2026

past activities

publications

statement Hyperscaler datacenter bij Sloterdijk is onwenselijk, by critical infrastructure lab and Leitmotiv (in Dutch). Feb 2026

report Clouded Judgments: Problematizing Cloud Infrastructures for News Media Companies, by Agustin Ferrari Braun and Corinne Cath. Jan 2026

op-ed De ware prijs van AI: groei ten kost van de planeet Samenleving & Politiek by Fieke Jansen. Nov 2025

report Pathways through the Polycrisis: Proceedings of the critical infrastructure lab retreat critical infrastructure lab document series CIL#012, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17417380. Oct 2025

book chapter People’s Practices in the Face of Data Power, Dialogues in Data Power. Shifting Response-abilities in a Datafied World, Roderic Crooks, Catherine D’Ignazio, Arne Hintz, Fieke Jansen, Juliane Jarke, Anne Kaun, Stine Lomborg, Dan McQuillan, Jonathan A. Obar, Lucy Pei, and Ana Pop Stefanija. Sep 2025

All publications

in the media

news article Van dit soort ijzeren reuzen komen er nog meer, dwars door dorpen en over akkers by Loek Buter (Dutch). Jan 2026

news article ‘Zeer onwenselijk’ dat grootste datacenter van Amsterdam helemaal in Amerikaans gebruik komt by Bart van Zoelen (Dutch). Jan 2026

press release Maatschappelijke organisaties uiten zorgen over hyperscaler datacenter bij Amsterdam Sloterdijk by Leitmotiv (Dutch). Jan 2026

news article In Amsterdam komt een hyperscale voor Microsoft, ondanks het verbod op hyperscales by Carola Houtekamer and Merijn Rengers (Dutch). Jan 2026

news article Google en Microsoft houden energiegebruik van hyperscale-datacenters geheim voor de overheid by Merijn Rengers and Carola Houtekamer featuring fieke jansen (Dutch). Jan 2026

More

experiments and interventions

EU digital legislation timeline February 2026

data center walks and infrastructure walks February 2025

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Join us for amateur exploration into the visibility of wireless equipment and services dotted around the city! We collectively map, observe and measure the techno-diversity of digital infrastructure in urban spaces. Data and infrastructure walks are a creative method and a social practice, which can be used to reflect on data power through critical infrastructure studies. It serves a variety of purposes, from public engagement, education, and artistic research to empirical studies.

Data center walks

We started data center walks with a simple question about how to make the invisible visible. People tend to forget about the infrastructure that lies beneath the data. For instance, the cloud remains a concept reduced to a depiction of a cloud, stripping data from its materiality. We usually do not see data centers, nor do we think about them in a material sense. By taking groups into data centers with us, we explore the resources, politics, and human labor that sustains them. To do so, we walk around and inside the data centers, observing physical traces as well as user-generated information online.

Infrastructure walks

We hold a series of “infrastructure walks” in Amsterdam and Berlin, exploring the visibility of digital infrastructures deployed in public spaces. The experience allows us to uncover data flows and to study datafication in urban areas. By engaging with the infrastructures around us, we seek to expose reconfigurations of power relations in the city through emerging technologies and protocols. Infrastructure walks address the question of what media technologies may mean “after all”, that is in the context of the life world, lived experiences and action possibilities of end users as embodied citizens. Insights can countermap the spatial control exercised through the electromagnetic spectrum in urban spaces. Often, us and the groups find that infrastructures should be (1) noticeable, (2) observable, (3) contestable or programmable to their users.

Upcoming walks and related events: Data Walk Workshop: Sensing Digital Materiality in Urban Public Spaces

Walking the infrastructure walk and dancing the frequency dance — You only see it when you get it

mud batteries and regenerative infrastructures February 2025

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Living Infrastructures and Organic Data Centers: Toward Ecological and Post-Extractive Computing

The environmental costs of computation have become impossible to ignore. Data centers, AI models, and communication infrastructures demand vast amounts of energy and minerals, intensifying extractive relations with both human and nonhuman worlds. In response, sustainability discourses in the technology sector promise greener energy, circular economies, and digital efficiency. Yet these solutions remain anchored in the same paradigm of accumulation that drives the ecological crisis in the first place.

In our lab, we take a different approach. We explore how computing might be reimagined from the ground up—literally—by engaging with living materials such as soil, microbes, and kombucha SCOBYs. These experiments aim not to optimize computation, but to decenter it, to ask what infrastructures might emerge when we take ecological entanglement rather than extraction as a design principle. On this page you will find impressions of our experiments.

Biological Power: Mud and Microbial Batteries

Together with artist Sunjoo Lee, we created an electrical gardan on the docks of the UvA. A series of mud batteries generate electricity through microbial fuel cells. These cells capture electrons produced by anaerobic bacteria in wet soil as they metabolize organic matter. The voltage is minimal—often between 0.3 and 0.7 volts per cell—but continuous, depending on the vitality of the microbial community. The continuous fluctuations in energy intensity sparked our curiosity — beyond the idea of mud as a power source — toward a space where voltage itself becomes an organic expression of computation. The soil thus becomes both the site and the medium of computation: energy is produced only as long as the ecosystem remains alive.

This project extends earlier artistic and scientific explorations of microbial electricity, but reframes them within the question of ecological infrastructures. Rather than treating biology as an alternative energy source to power existing systems, we ask how it could inspire new relations of maintenance, temporality, and dependency in digital systems.

Organic Substrates: Kombucha and Clay

We are also exploring kombucha SCOBYs—symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast—as living materials for circuit design. The cellulose-rich surfaces of dried SCOBYs are conductive when infused with certain electrolytes and can host sewn or printed traces. Alongside this, we draw inspiration from clay-based printed circuit boards, which uses local soil as both substrate and metaphor: the ground becomes circuitry. These material practices invite us to rethink electronics as earthbound and circular, materials that will eventually returning to the soil.

Sensing, Powering, and Communicating

To connect these experiments, we use a LabJack U3 interface to continuously measure voltage and current across the microbial and SCOBY cells. Our goal is to power a small web server directly through this living power source—a website whose uptime literally depends on the health of its microbial community. The fluctuating readings are logged and visualized in real time, making the metabolism of the mud and SCOBY visible as a communicative process.

Beyond measurement we see soil as the medium of computation. A first step is to enable distributed communication through the Reticulum Network Stack between the microbial and SCOBY cells. This stack enables resilient, peer-to-peer data exchange without reliance on central servers or the global internet. In a next phase, we plan to integrate the sBitx v3 transceiver to transmit microbial compute over shortwave radio. The Hermes.radio protocol, allows us to link biological power, local measurement, and planetary communication through low-power open infrastructures.

Computing Otherwise

These prototypes are small in scale but large in implication. They suggest that computing need not depend on extraction, nor sustainability on efficiency. Instead, we experiment with ecological computation as a mode of care, reciprocity, and coexistence—where systems live and die with the materials that sustain them.

By experimenting with mud, microbes, SCOBYs, and clay, we seek to develop new relations to computing and to decenter dominant theories of technological progress. This work aligns with broader debates in science and technology studies on digital sovereignty, infrastructural power, and ecological media, asking how infrastructures might evolve beyond capital’s logics of expansion toward restorative and regenerative practices.

In short, our aim is to imagine what computing could become if it were not only in the world, but also of it.

phase shift: the antennas and us February 2025

More

people and governance

people

niels ten oever

niels@criticalinfralab.net – co-principal investigator – geopolitics lead

niels is an assistant professor of AI and European democracies and co-principal investigator with the critical infrastructure lab at the University of Amsterdam. He is a visiting professor with the Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Niels teaches courses in politics and technology, has implemented technology projects on five continents, and has participated in many governance and standard-setting processes, such as in the IETF, ICANN, ITU, ICANN, and 3GPP. His research focuses on how norms, values, and ideologies get inscribed, resisted, and subverted in communication infrastructures through their transnational governance. In his work, he tries to understand how invisible infrastructures provide a socio-technical ordering to information societies and how this influences the distribution of wealth, power, and possibilities.

maxigas

peter ‘maxigas’ dunajcsik – maxigas@criticalinfralab.net – co-principal investigator – standards lead

maxigas is assistant professor at the media department at utrecht university. he interested in hacker culture, cybernetic ideologies, infrastructural imaginaries, and the materiality of the digital. he uses media ethnography and digital methods to answer philosophical questions about contemporary social conflicts. with a thoroughly interdisciplinary background in the social sciences and humanities, a decade long industry experience in it, and a history of media activist practice, he brings a theoretically sophisticated, technologically grounded, politically savvy perspective to debates on media and culture. his papers have been published in leading journals in science and technology studies as well as media studies, from the social studies in science, through the journal of peer production, to most recently in the internet policy review.

fieke jansen

fieke jansen – fieke@criticalinfralab.net – co-principal investigator – environment lead

fieke is a postdoc researcher at the media studies department and a co-principal investigator with the critical infrastructure lab at the university of amsterdam. She is part of the 'Exploring sustainability and environmental resilience: Sustainable AI Futures' research project, led by Professor Samantha Walton, Bath Spa University. Fieke is a co-lead of the green screen coalition and a member of the advisory group for the Internet Infrastructure Climate Resilience Coalition: Action Research in Aotearoa New Zealand project. Fieke did her phd at the data justice lab of cardiff university, where she looked into the social justice issues of datafied policing in Europe. fieke is a former mozilla and green web foundation fellow where she explored ways to frame the climate crisis as a core digital rights issue.

fieke's research interest is to understand how the material impact of expanding infrastructures is shaping the management, distribution, and depletion of natural resources.

dmitry kuznetsov

dmitry – dmitry@criticalinfralab.net – postdoc researcher

dmitry is a researcher at the critical infrastructure lab. previously he was a PhD student and a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Journalism and Communication in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. dmitry’s research covers a variety of subjects, ranging from governance of internet infrastructure to formation/change of communities on digital platforms, united by an interest in the role of discourse vis-a-vis technology and society. beyond academia, dmitry has engaged with the internet governance sphere in the Asia-Pacific region, contributing to DotAsia’s Netmission initiative and participating in the 2023 APAC DNS Forum and the 2024 APRIGF.

eric zhang

eric – eric@criticalinfralab.net – PhD Candidate

eric zhang is a PhD Candidate at the critical infrastructure lab, where he studies how states' political ideologies in the EU, China and Russia shape digital technologies. besides, he is also a research fellow at the Leiden Asia Centre on international security in cyberspace and China-Russia relations. eric has a background in political science and international relations, and is passionate in applying computational methods such as Natural Language Processing in his research.

gargi sharma

gargi – gargi@criticalinfralab.net – programme coordinator

gargi is programme coordinator at the critical infrastructure lab. she is also communications & development manager at the clima fund and previously was a researcher and policy officer at the global data justice project at tilburg university.

nora svensson

nora – nora@criticalinfralab.net – research assistant

fellows

anders aarvik

fellow 2025-2026 – anders@criticalinfralab.net – environment

anders investigates alternative internet infrastructures and system building through computational-aesthetic resistance. His research is informed by user-involved participation in the field of critical software and critical technical practice that overlap with artistic experimentation.

as a critical infrastructure lab fellow, he will focus on the print automation pipeline used to generate reports in the lab, seen through the lens of both a systems engineer/administrator, an artist, and a researcher.

Agustin Ferrari Braun

fellow 2025-2026 – agustin@criticalinfralab.net

agustin ferrari braun is a phd researcher at the university of amsterdam, studying the digital infrastructures of european media companies. he is interested in the political economy of media, media theory, and infrastructural imaginaries.

as a research fellow, he will be exploring the conceptualisations of the State present in contemporary theories of digital infrastructures, and whether they conform to traditional models of power and technology.

Olia Kanevskaia

fellow 2025-2026 – olia@criticalinfralab.net

olia is assistant professor of eu public economic law and technology at utrecht university. she investigates alternative forms of regulation, in particular technology standards, their legitimacy and interplay with international trade law and european administrative law.

Nigel Sequeira

fellow 2025-2026 – nigel@criticalinfralab.net

Nigel is interested in non-hegemonic interpretations of contemporary financial infrastructure. Among other things, during the fellowship he will investigate international capital markets as artefacts of unequal and combined development. His academic background is in mathematics and he has worked as a web developer, ghostwriter, and policy analyst. At present he works as an EU Trade Specialist at Terex Corporation.

becoming a fellow

are you interested in becoming a fellow? for us a fellow is someone who is connected to the infrastructure lab and adds to the body of knowledge and activities of the lab. the relationship should be mutually beneficial and contribute to creating new infrastructural imaginaries. fellows are selected for an academic year with the possibility to add another year. what we request of you is that you join our reading groups, organize an activity, and/or (co-)author a paper with us. what can we offer: an affiliation, participation in the (intellectual life of the) lab and the possibility to present on lab days, and have a space and platform to co-organize something. if needed, we can also explore if we can be fiscal sponsor for your projects. we provide desk space if needed. interested? contact one of the co-pis!

board

inspiration

former fellows, staff, and board members

Szilvia Mondel

project manager

Szilvia Mondel was the first project manager of the critical infrastructure lab. she has extensive experience with managing educational and institutional projects at the university of amsterdam. her organizational, administrative, and logistical skills were indispensable to running the critical infrastructure lab. she also loves windsurfing and painting.

ellen strickland

fellow 2023-2024 – geopolitics

ellen is an internet policy practitioner and researcher who has been studying and engaging in the shaping of internet governance and infrastructure since the early 2000s, during the WSIS process. She has engaged from across sectors, including as a government official, technical community leader, civil society advocate, and satellite investment company founder.

as a fellow she was reflecting on approaches to research and praxis, building on her previous research grounded in a critical political economy perspective and exploring discursive and sociological practices of internet policymaking.

she has a keen interest in reform of multilateral and multistakeholder Internet governance, as well as Internet infrastructure development to help people respond to and reduce the impacts of climate crisis.

vasilis ververis

fellow 2023-2024 – standards

vasilis is a researcher studying the technical implications of internet censorship in the eu and worldwide.

during their fellowship at the critical infrastructure lab, vasilis worked on a system that can track, categorize, and enumerate incidents of internet censorship, and network disruptions due to human or natural disasters that affect websites and Internet services.

jenna ruddock

fellow 2023-2024 – environment

jenna is a researcher and advocate interested in the intersections of law, technology, media and environmental justice.

as a critical infrastructure lab fellow, she continued her research on data centers, water use, and community resistance/governance. this work aimed to situate data center construction, operations, and expansion within a broader history of industrial infrastructure politics.

jef ausloos

fellow 2024 – geopolitics

jef ausloos is an assistant professor at the institute for information law at the university of Amsterdam, and a research fellow at the centre for IT & IP law at the university of Leuven. His work is driven by a critical understanding of the political economy of digital infrastructures and a desire for social change. Jef has worked in/with NGOs and people across disciplines and geographies. Currently, his work mainly centres around data rights and transparency of digital infrastructures.

senka hadzic

Senka is a researcher interested in affordable last mile connectivity solutions for remote areas and disadvantaged populations. As an Information Control Fellow supported by the Open Technology Fund, Senka worked with the critical infrastructure lab team on the digital security aspects and resilience of last mile solutions, such as community networks.

nadia gorchakova

nadia was a program manager at the critical infrastructure lab and has a background at the intersection of technology and climate justice. in a previous role, nadia worked for a global climate advocacy 350.org where she and her team managed the digital infrastructure of the organization.

sarah vorndran

sarah was a research assistant at the critical infrastructure lab with an interdisciplinary background in area- and media studies. her soft spot for design and its socio-technical dimensions manifests in creative explorations of urban infrastructures and digital interfaces. in a previous role, sarah assisted research on the modelling of uncertainty in climate communication, funded by the chinese university of hong kong. formerly, she was also affiliated with the educational radio às margens da cidade at the universidade federal de são carlos, where she participated as researcher on urban inequalities in brazil.

valentina ochner

Valentina was an intern at the critical infrastructure lab under the supervision of Fieke. She is a student of Environmental Humanities at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and has a background in media and cultural studies. She is interested in phenomena at the intersection between digital infrastructures and the climate crisis. During her internship she researched the role of Big Tech companies in the renegotiations of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.

corinne cath

fellow 2023-2024 – environment

corinne is an anthropologist studying internet infrastructure politics. she brings ethnographic praxis to the study of computing cultures, cloud politics, and internet governance.

as an inaugural critical infrastructure lab fellow, she will be investigating the rough cultures that define internet governance communities and how cloud computing is changing power dynamics in the internet industry. she also has a keen interest in researching the intersection between space governance and internet technologies, including satellites and cosmic content delivery networks.

andreas baur

fellow 2023-2024 – geopolitics

Andreas Baur is a research associate at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, Germany. There, he has been working on several research projects on IT infrastructures and their governance, technology ethics, security, and privacy. He is an external PhD candidate working on ‘The Politics of the Cloud’ at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam.

Andreas’ research focuses on the intersection between information and security technologies and society, especially with regards to questions of power, autonomy, and dependency.

jen liu

fellow 2024-2025 – environment

Jen Liu is a researcher and designer studying the ecological, social, and political implications of computing technologies and infrastructures. She is currently a PhD candidate in Information Science at Cornell University where she is studying the impact of climate change on networked infrastructures in coastal landscapes.

Thymen Gomperts

fellow 2024-2025 – standards

Thymen Gomperts is a carpenter and builder situated in the historic heart of Amsterdam. The building industry has always been deeply entangled with the development and practical application of infrastructure and standards.

Being both practically involved and highly interested in the subject, he helps give the lab insights into the common problems associated with organizing and applying infrastructure and standards in the real world and its changes throughout history.

Zuza Warso

fellow 2024-2025 – geopolitics

Zuza's research focuses on exploring how EU policies affect digital infrastructures and how they could be steered to support a model of digital public space that is non-extractive, allows people to enjoy their rights, and protects the commons. Zuza is Research Director at Open Future. She has a background in human rights and European law.

Nai Lee Kalema

fellow 2024-2025 – geopolitics

Nai Lee Kalema is a PhD candidate in Innovation and Public Policy at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL IIPP) at UCL (University College London). Her research examines the global political economy of digital transformation, specifically how global governance and policies influence public-sector digital transformation in the Global South. Specifically, Nai’s empirical cases look at digital public infrastructure and digital-era government projects linked to digital identity in Kenya and Uganda.