Niels is an Assistant Professor in the Department of European Studies and Co-Principal Investigator of the critical infrastructure lab at the University of Amsterdam. His research examines communication infrastructures through the lenses of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and International Political Economy (IPE), tracing their evolution from the telegraph to the internet, contemporary submarine cables, and satellite networks. Niels serves on the advisory boards of the Amsterdam School for Regional, Transnational and European Studies and the German inter-university project AI Infrastructures for Sovereignty and Self-Determination, and coordinates the Tech, Power, and Policy theme group at the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies.

Niels’ research examines how norms, values, and ideologies are inscribed, resisted, and subverted within communication infrastructures, and how these systems influence the transnational distribution of wealth, power, and possibilities. His most recent work focuses on the infrastructural ideologies of digital sovereignty and industrial policies for the production and standardisation of the internet in China, Russia, and the European Union. 

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. He was a visiting professor at the Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. He was a 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. During his PhD, he was affiliated with the DATACTIVE Research Group 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), the 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 Electrical 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, mainly 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 research MA in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam.

You can find Niels' personal website here.
If you are looking for an academic-style CV, you can find it here.
If you want to know what Niels is reading, have a look at his Zotero library.

2026-2027

• Embedded Research Project on Spaced Communication Infrastructures, Governance and Standards, MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• PhD Research Design Intensive Course for PhD candidates in the Humanities, University of Amsterdam
• European Technology Policy since 1975: AI, Starlink, and 5G, BA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Building a Digital Europe, MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam

2025-2026

• Embedded Research Project on Submarine Cables, MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• European Technology Policy since 1975: AI, Starlink, and 5G, BA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Building a Digital Europe, MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam

2024-2025

• European Technology Policy since 1975: AI, Starlink, and 5G, BA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Multilevel Politics in the European Union, BA compulsory course, 12 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Building a Digital Europe, MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam

2023-2024

• Diploma en Gobernanze de Internet, post-graduate course, Centro de Estudios en Tecnología y Sociedad (CETyS) de la Universidad de San Andrés
• European Integration and Democracy, BA compulsory course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Building a Digital Europe, MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Democracy in the European Union. MA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• European Technology Policy Since 1975 – Space, Telecommunications, and the Internet, BA elective course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam

2022-2023

• Philosophy of the Humanities 2: European Studies. BA compulsory course, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Democracy in the European Union. MA elective course, University of Amsterdam, 6 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Digital Activism Course, MA elective course, 12 EC, University of Amsterdam
• Diplomatura Gobernanza de Internet, Universidad de San Andrés

2021-2022

• Data Futures Lab on Digital Urban Futures, 200-level “intensive” Social Sciences course designed and taught at Amsterdam University College
• Research Skills Methodology Tutorial, Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam