Niels is an assistant professor in the European Studies department and co-principal investigator of the critical infrastructure lab at the University of Amsterdam. Additionally, he is a coordinator of the Tech, Power, and Policy theme group at the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies and a visiting professor at the Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. His research focuses on how norms, values, and ideologies get inscribed, resisted, and subverted in communication infrastructures through their transnational governance.
Niels 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.
Niels is co-founder and former chair of both the Human Rights Protocol Considerations (hrpc) Research Group and the Research and Analysis of Standard-Setting Processes (rasp) Research Group in the Internet Research Taskforce (IRTF) , and a veteran of the Internet Research Steering group (IRSG). He served as Vice-Chair for the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (giga-net) and as the final editor of the Tao of the IETF. During his PhD, he was affiliated with the DATACTIVE Research Group at the University of Amsterdam. After that he was postdoctoral researcher at Texas A&M University and a postdoctoral researcher with the ‘Making the hidden visible: Co-designing for public values in standards-making and governance’-project at the Media Studies department at the University of Amsterdam. For his research, Niels has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Open Technology Fund, the Internet Society Foundation, the Omidyar Foundation, the Dutch Research Council (NWO), MacArthur Foundation, the Amsterdam Municipality, and the University of Amsterdam.
Before Niels returned to academia, he worked as Head of Digital for ARTICLE19 where he set up the digital programme which mainstreamed human rights in the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Institute for Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). He co-authored the book How the Internet Really Works, which has now been translated into French, German, Polish, Ukrainian, and Korean. Before all this, Niels designed and implemented freedom of expression projects with Free Press Unlimited, mostly in the Horn of Africa. At the beginning of his career, he helped establish the first community radio stations of Ethiopia. He holds a cum laude MA in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam.
If you want to know what Niels is reading, have a look at his Zotero library.
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Nederlands // Dutch:
Niels is Universitair Docent bij de afdeling Europese Studies en co-leidend onderzoeker van het critical infrastructure lab aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Hij is tevens als fellow geaffilieerd aan het Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade aan de Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. Niels onderzoekt hoe waarden ingebed worden in de Internet infrastructuur.
Niels probeert een dieper begrip te verschaffen in hoe onzichtbare infrastructuren socio-technische ordening aanbrengen in onze samenleving, en hoe dit de verdeling van welvaart, macht en mogelijkheden beïnvloedt.
Voorheen was Niels promovendus bij de DATACTIVE onderzoeksgroep en de afdelingen Media Studies en Politicologie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Daarna was hij als postdoctoraal onderzoeker verbonden aan de Texas A&M University en het door NWO gefinancierde project ‘Maak het onzichtbare zichbaar: het co-ontwerpen van publieke waarden in in de ontwikkelingen van infrastructuur standaarden en bestuur‘ aan de Mediastudies afdeling van de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Hij was ook fellow bij Centre for Internet and Human Rights aan de European University Viadrina, het Centre for Democracy and Society in Washington DC, gelieerd aan de Digital Democracy Insitute aan de Simon Fraser University en vice-voorzitter van de Global Internet Governance Academic Network. Daarvoor was Niels ‘Head of Digital’ bij de internationale organisatie ARTICLE19 waar hij het digitale programma heeft opgezet dat zich richt op het beschermen van mensenrechten in de architectuur en infrastructuur van het Internet in governance lichamen als de IETF, ICANN, IEEE en ITU.
Daarvoor zette hij zich in voor vrijheid van meningsuiting door radio stations op te zetten, apps te ontwikkelen, en mensen te trainen in digitale veiligheid in onder meer Ethiopië, Somalië, Afghanistan, Brazilië en Mexico voor Free Press Unlimited. Niels heeft een cum laude MA in filosofie van de Universiteit van Amsterdam.