I am Assistant Professor at the GPIO, embedded with the AISSR programme group on Political and Economic Geographies. My research broadly considers how digital platforms (as sociotechnical artefacts and politico-economic actors) interact with states and transrom socail and spatial relations. More specifically, my ongoing projects investigate the intersection between the so-called 'AI race' and militarisation, and the geopolitics of internet infrastructure. 

At UvA, I am on the steering board of the RPA AI & Politics, and co-director of the RPA Global Digital Cultures. . I am affiliated with the Tech, Power and Politics group of the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies, and with the UVA Centre for Urban Studies. 

My book, ‘Jerusalem Online: Critical Cartography for the Digital Age’, has been published by Palgrave-MacMillan in 2021 and examines the politics of web-maps in/of Jerusalem, drawing on ontological social theory and feminist technoscience. Prior to joining UvA, I held a Fondecyt postdoc fellowship at CIGIDEN / Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago.

AI geopolitics between domination and competition (NWO-XS Grant, 2025-2026)

In 2024, OpenAI removed the clause prohibiting military applications of its technologies. This change signals a broader trend, whereby geopolitical actors use AI to pursue their agendas. My project investigates this trend, combining insights from social science research on AI and critical geopolitics. It focuses on three groups - consultants, academics and companies – with particular influence on geopolitical knowledge. Drawing on discourse analysis and ethnographic observations, it asks: how does AI feature in, and transform, geopolitical storylines? The project contributes to the emerging literature on AI geographies, and brings a much-needed critical perspective on societal debates about AI.

The project is funded through an NWO XS-grant.

Cable geopolitics: Situating digital infrastructural sovereignty beyond US-China polarization (AISSR Starter Grant, 2024-2029)

Digital platforms, devices, and infrastructures play an increasingly prominent role in national geopolitical agendas. Amid the enduring centrality of US-based tech companies within computing networks, and China's growing influence over different layers of the global stack, many states are grappling with how to assert their digital infrastructural sovereignty. As they try to materialize their digitalization projects, states are required to navigate increasingly tangled webs of global digital power. Our project seeks to understand how digital infrastructural sovereignty is performed and negotiated beyond US-China disputes, at the global, regional, and local levels. With a focus on subsea and subterrestrial cables – critical infrastructures that operate across borders –, we draw on different regional contexts to ask:  How do state and non-state actors negotiate their digital infrastructural sovereignty amidst rising tensions between East and West, and persisting geoeconomic asymmetries between the North and the South? We approach this question through different entry points, zooming into the circulating imaginaries and situated practices enrolled in making, maintaining, and governing transnational fibre optic cable networks. The research will contribute to emerging geographical research on digital sovereignty, combining STS sensitivities for situated technological practices with a post-colonial understanding of the macro-political and economic inequalities shaping infrastructural projects and agendas.

The project is funded through a partial AISSR Starter Gran;, the team includes Carolina Maurity Frossard, Virginie Mamadouh, Ouejdane Sabbah (PhD candidate) and Pablo Zagt Hernández (PhD candidate).

I currently co-supervise the following PhD candidates:

• Pablo Zagt Hernandez, with Virginie Mamadouh (main supervisor). Project: 'Thinking with the isthmus: geopolitics of subsea cables and the struggles for digital sovereignty in Central America'
• Jorien Oprins, with Niels Beerepoot (main supervisor). Project: 'Negotiating livelihoods on online freelance platforms: labour agency among Filipino freelancers'

Master's courses

• Supervisions of masters theses for the MSc Human Geography, MRes Urban Studies and MRes International Development Studies
• The Capitalocene: Understanding Unequal Exchange and Environmental Conflict, MSc International Development Studies and MRes International Development Studies, Lecturer/co-coordinator (2024-), with Crelis Rammelt (2024-) and Joeri Scholtens (2024-)
• Advanced Political Geography, MSc Human Geography, co-taught with Virginie Mamadouh (2022-)
• Research Methodologies 2: Spatial Analyses,  MSc Human Geography & MSc Urban and Regional Planning, Lecturer/Coordinator, co-taught with Yang Chen, (2021-)

Bachelor's courses

• Research Project: Abroad, BSc Human Geography and Planning, Lecturer (2024-)