For public talks and interviews, please see media.
Conference Organisation
▪ Co-Organiser of Zonification as Global Policy, First Workshop, Vienna, 23.07.2026; Second Workshop, Frankfurt, Center for Critical Computational Studies, 14.-15.12.2026.
▪ Co-Organiser of RMU Data Dialogue 2026 Winter School: Critical Data Visualisation, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, 09.-11.12.2026.
▪ Academic Director for Conference: Digital Resilience in a Multipolar World – Global Perspectives on the Resilience of the Digital Economy and Society, in partnership the German Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation and the European Network for Technological Resilience and Sovereignty, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, 27.11.2026.
▪ Organiser of talk series Contemporary Debates in Critical Data & Surveillance Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, Summer Semester 2026.
▪ Member of the organising committee, the 11th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Université Catholique de Lille, France, 10-12 June 2026.
▪ Co-organiser of the workshop “Global Governance of Post-Smart Cities” (with David Murakami Wood and Vincent Mirza), University of Ottawa, 15-17 October 2025.
▪ Member of the organising committee and Majority World Track Chair, the 10th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Ljubljana University, Slovenia, May 28-31 2024.
▪ Member of the organising committee, the first Workshop for German Research Network Emancipatory Technology: The relationship between technology and emancipation, Osnabrück, 2-3 March 2023. [funded by German Research Foundation, DFG]
▪ Member of the organising committee, concept developer, and panels’ host, International Convention on Digitally-Mediated Assemblies with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stichting, 27.02.2023
▪ Member of the organising committee, the 9th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Erasmus University Rotterdam, June 1-3 2022, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
▪ Organiser of Surveillance in the Global South Researchers’ Workshop, hosted online by Münster University, August 2021.
Invited Talks & Chaired Panels
Upcoming Invited Panels
▪Conference, The Actuality of Critique in Times of Computational Ideology, Professur Law and Philosophy, Center for Critical Computational Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, 16.-18.10.2026
Past Events
▪Keynote Lecture: Histories of Tracking Conference, University of Luxembourg, 30.09.-02.10.2026
▪Keynote Lecture: Gender, Place and Culture and the Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group of the RGS at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference, 1-4.09.2026
▪Keynote Panellist: Digital Geographies Annual Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) International Annual Conference 1-4.09.2026
▪Panel Co-Chair (with Casey Lynch): Big Tech, the State and Emerging Governance
Assemblages (2 Panels) at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference 1-4.09.2026
▪Panel Co-Chair (with Casey Lynch): Big-Tech and the Governance of Labour and Bodies at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference 1-4.09.2026
▪Invited Panel Discussant: Artificial Intelligence and its Fascist Geographies at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference 1-4.09.2026
▪ Keynote Panellist: Surveillance and Atrocity, the 11th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Université Catholique de Lille, France, 11.06.2026.
▪ Invited Panellist: Feminist AI Ecosystem: Unlocking the collective power of feminist movements to accelerate transformative change, Data CARE festival, Utrecht University, 10.06.2026.
▪ Invited Speaker: Uneven datafication: Political Economy of Digital Colonial Capitalism, Taming the Machines Public Lectures, University of Hamburg, Germany, 03.06.2026.
▪ Invited Speaker: The Impact of Digital Sovereignty on the Internet, SWING – School on Internet Governance 2026, United Nations University, Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies, Brugge, Belgium, 21.04.2026.
▪ Invited Contributor: Data Voids: On the Politics of Missing Data, Data Migrations and Mobilities Workshop, Taltech University, Talin, Estonia, 8-9.04.2026.
▪ Invited Speaker: Uneven datafication, Department of Human Geography, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, 04.03.2026.
▪ Invited Contributor: Authoritarian Smart Cities, Post-Smart-Cities Seminar, Department of Human Geography, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, 26.02.2026.
▪ Invited contributor: Uneven datafication, at the workshop “Global Governance of Post-Smart Cities”, University of Ottawa, 15-17 October 2025.
▪ Invited discussant for the panel “Author Meets Interlocutors – Informational Peripheries: Rethinking the Urban in a Digital Age (Ayona Datta & Fenna Hoefsloot),” RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2025, Birmingham, UK, 27.08.2025.
▪ Invited contributor at the workshop The politics of digitalisation-as-urbanisation, organised by Regional Futures ERC research group, UCL, London, 1-2.09.2025.
▪ Panel Co-Chair: Critical perspectives on global AI policy and governance, International Public Policy Association Conference, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 4 July 2025.
▪ Keynote Panel Speaker: Authoritarian Smart Cities, Digital Geographies Annual Symposium 2025, (online), 20 June 2025.
▪ Panel Chair: Researching surveillance in Africa, DRIF25 (Digital Rights & Inclusion Forum), Lusaka, Zambia, 29 April- 1 May 2025.
▪ Invited Speaker: Resistance within and against digital surveillance regimes, Resistance Psychology Network. (online), 3 March 2025.
▪ Invited discussant for the paper “Digital Embodiments of the Women’s Protest and Gendered Disinformation in Iran” at Virtual Routes Colloquium, 19.02.2025.
▪ Invited Speaker: Digital Development Dilemma: From Progress to Control, Centre of Governance & Human Rights. University of Cambridge, November 2024.
▪ Invited Speaker: Authoritarian Smart Cities: A Digital Development Dilemma, Centre for Law, Technology and Society, University of Ottawa, October 2024.
▪ Keynote Speaker: Authoritarian Smart Cities: A Digital Development Dilemma, Smart Cities as Safe Cities Conference, CEThicS: Interdisciplinary Research Center for Surveillance Technologies and Practices. Université Catholique de Lille, October 2024.
▪ Invited contributor at the workshop Fundamental interdisciplinary questions between CS and SSH, organised by SocialX group at the Lorentz Center, Leiden University, 24-28.06.2024
▪ Panel chair: Critical Information and Communication Technology for Development and Surveillance Studies, the 10th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Ljubljana University, Slovenia, 30.05.2024.
▪ Invited panellist at the roundtable Authoritarian surveillance in illiberal times, SOS4Democracy consortium (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Institute of Criminology in Ljubljana), Slovene Ethnographical Museum, Ljubljana, 28.05.2024.
▪ Invited contributor: Digital Development Dilemma, Digital Repression Workshop, Hertie School of Governance, 22-24.05.2024
▪ Invited contributor: Authoritarian Smart Cities and Urban Participation. At the Digital Democracy: Bridging Theory and Practice” – 1st Conference of the European Network for Digital Democracy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, April 9-11, 2024.
▪ Invited contributor: at the workshop Police Violence, Interdisciplinary Research Center Transformations of Political Violence: University of Marburg, 25-26.01.2024.
▪ Invited lecture: Why shutting down the internet is gender discrimination?: the case of Iran, Feminist Legal Studies, Queen’s University, Canada, 24.11.2023 [Online].
▪ Invited lecture: The Digital Development Dilemma: Technology-Enabled Authoritarianism, Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa, 30.10.2023.
▪ Invited lecture (with Prof. David Murakami Wood): Authoritarian Smart Cities: Platforms, Governance and Total Urban Surveillance, Centre for Law, Technology & Society, University of Ottawa, 04.10.2023.
▪ Keynote Speaker: Surveillance and Democracy in the Global South, Internet Lab’s Congress on Fundamental Rights and Criminal Procedure in the Digital Age, University of São Paulo [online], 29.08.2023.
▪ Panel Organiser & member: Surveillance embedded in telecommunication and internet infrastructures: how to make infrastructural surveillance visible? RightsCon 2023 Costa Rica (online), 08.06.2023. [with Crofton Black, Lighthouse Reports]
▪ Invited contributor: at the workshop Understanding and Combating Online Manipulation: Setting an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda, Digital Life Initiative: Cornell Tech, New York, May 11.-12.05.2023.
▪ Invited contributor: Political Economy of Data: A Global South Perspective, at the workshop Decolonized Narratives in Political Economy: Alternative Perspectives from the Global South, Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study and University of Hamburg, 28.-29.03.2023.
▪ Invited panellist at the panel Circulations of STS research(ers) and good academic research practice and working conditions, STS-hub.de 2023 conference, the Human Technology Center, Aachen, 15.03.2023.
▪ Invited panellist to the Masterclass on Geo Ethics: Ethical issues underlining research with geospatial data, ITC, University of Twente, 08.03.2023.
▪ Invited contributor to the workshop Urban Digital Infrastructures and Privilege, Design Lab, University of Twente, 08.12.2022.
▪ Invited lecture: Digital Sovereignty: The Influence of Chinese Digital Governance Discourse on Iran, Political geography in the age of digital media workshop, University of Freiburg, 23.-24.9.2022.
▪ Invited lecture: Bodies that Betray: Biometric Data & EU’s Corporeal Borders, Hidden layers: AI and Design summer school, Köln International School of Design, 22.07.2022.
▪ Invited lecture: Die verratenden Körper: EU Grenzkontrolle durch biometrische Datensammlung, Humangeographisches Kolloquium, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, 29.06.2022.
▪ Invited panellist: Opening the Black Box of EU’s Migration Data Banks at the conference ‘Border Regimes in the Age of Technoscience,’ International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, 23-4.06.2022.
▪ Panel chair: Surveillance Studies & the Global South, the 9th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2.06.2022.
▪ Invited panellist at the workshop ‘Between controversy and struggle: methodological interventions,’ Amsterdam Centre on European Studies (ACES), 31.05.2022
▪ Panel chair: Feminist and Queer Approaches to Technological Resistance in the Global South, IFIP 9.4 conference (the Working Group 9.4 of the International Federation for Information Processing), virtual, 26.05.2022
▪ Invited panellist: Opening the Black Box of EU’s Migration Data Banks for the concluding round table “Futures of Intelligence Oversight”, Intelligence, surveillance, and oversight: tracing connections and contestations Conference, King’s College London, 27.01.2022
▪ Invited lecture: Contestation over Data from the Global South: An Activist-Academic Perspective at Southern Critical Data Studies ECR Network, University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, St John’s College, 15.09.2021.
▪ Digitale Technologien und die Festigung der autoritären Herrschaft: Ein iranisches Fallbeispiel, Lecture for the German PhD Prize 2021 (nominated in social science category), Körber Stiftung, Berlin, 29.06.2021
▪ Invited lecture: Surveillance as Spatial Injustice, VUB Research Chair in Surveillance Studies’ Seminars, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium, 17.06.2021
▪ Invited panellist: Self-harm as resistance against biometric data gathering in the EU’s migration system, Digital Identity During Times of Crisis’ Workshop, Alan Turing Institute, London, 24.05.2021.
▪ Invited panellist: Authoritarian Surveillance: A Corona Test, The Digital State: Technology and Government in Pandemic Times, the Centre for Digital Culture, the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, 14.05.2021
▪ Invited lecture: Autoritärer Wandel: Wird die Corona-Krise die Überwachungspolitik ändern? Das humangeographische Kolloquium, Universität Jena, 30.06.2020.
▪ Invited panellist: Panel: Anonymity, Privacy, Transparency, Surveillance, Conference & Exhibition: A = Anonym, Kampnagel, Hamburg, 25.10.2018.
Talks at Policy-Making Level
▪ Invited Panellist at the panel Iran Crisis Under Darkness, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium, 24.03.2026.
▪ Invited Panellist at the panel Internet Shutdown and Network restrictions: Avoiding Internet Fragmentation, UN Internet Governance Forum 2022, Ethiopia, 30.11.2022. https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2022-open-forum-95-internet-shutdown-and-network-restrictions
▪ Invited Panellist at the workshop Preventing internet shutdowns and platform-specific restrictions (DFI principle: A global internet), EU Commission’s high-level multi-stakeholder event on the Future of the Internet, Prague, 02.11.2022. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/events/high-level-multi-stakeholder-event-future-internet
Conference Presentations
▪Big Tech Authoritarianism, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference, London, 03.09.2026
▪ Uneven datafication, the 11th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Université Catholique de Lille, France, 12.06.2026.
▪ Uneven datafication, Data Justice Conference, Cardiff University, UK, 01-03.06.2026.
▪ Uneven datafication, Jahrestreffen Arbeitskreis digitale Geographien, Goethe University Frankfurt, 06.11.2025.
▪ (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood) Authoritarianism, AI Imaginaries, and Smart Cities: Towards a Taxonomy, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2025, Birmingham, UK, 29.08.2025.
▪ Follow the Thing: Situating Data vs. its Universalisation, Data Power conference [online], 04.09.2024.
▪ (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood) Authoritarian Smart Cities and Total Urban Surveillance. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Royal Geographical Society, London, UK, 28.08.2024.
▪ The birth of code/body: an autoethnography of the body at EU borders, east + 4s, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17.07.2024.
▪ The Appropriation of Telegram by Iran and Russia: From Restriction to Manipulation, the 10th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Ljubljana University, Slovenia, 29.05.2024.
▪ (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood) Authoritarian Smart Cities and Total Urban Surveillance. SSN Oregon 2023, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA, 13.10.2023.
▪ Authoritarian Smart Cities: Emerging Technologies and Societal Transformations Conference, University of Twente, Netherlands, 21.09.2023
▪ The politics of justice in the “Data Justice” discourse. Data Justice 2023 Conference, Cardiff, UK, 19-20.06.2023.
▪ Authoritarian Smart Cities: Platforms, Governance and Total Urban Surveillance, Online, PlatGov Conference, 04.04.2023. (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood, University of Ottawa)
▪ Authoritarian Smart City: A Research Agenda, Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2023 conference, Denver & online, 23.03.2023.
▪ Smart Authoritarian City: A Spatial|Data Justice Approach, Netherlands Institute of Governance (NIG) Conference, Tilburg University, 13.10.2022.
▪ Automation of urban policing: Spatial|Data Justice and women’s resistance against compulsory Hijab in Iran, Beyond Smart Cities, Malmö University, 17.06.2022.
▪ The Code-Body at the EU’s Digital Corporeal Borders, the 9th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3.06.2022.
▪ Biometric Data Banks and EU’s Corporeal Borders. American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting (virtual), New York, 26.02.2022.
▪ Substitutional Educational Platforms in the ECO Countries during COVID-19 Pandemic. II Digital Geographies Conference (virtual): Critical perspectives on the platform economy, University of Lisbon, 28.10.2021
▪ Die verratenden Körper: EU Grenzkontrolle durch biometrische Datensammlung. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Online, 08.10.2021.
▪ Digitale Schulplattformen in den ECO-Ländern während der COVID-19-Pandemie: Widerstandsfähigkeit und ICT4D. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Online, 08.10.2021.
▪ Datafied Code-Body, Borders and EU’s Migration System. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021, Royal Geographical Society, London (online), 02.09.2021.
▪ Epistemic Consequences of Following Data from the Global South. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021, Royal Geographical Society, London (online), 01.09.2021.
▪ Epistemic Consequences of Following Data from the Global South. 5th Digital Geographies Research Group Annual Symposium: Where next for Digital Geographies? Pathways and prospects, Online, 14.07.2021.
▪ A Resilient ICT4D Approach to ECO Countries’ Education Response during COVID-19 Pandemic. IFIP 9.4 Virtual Conference 2021: Resilient ICT4D, IFIP’s Working Group on the Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development 26.05.2021.
▪ Bodies that Betray: EU’s Corporeal Borders. TILTing Perspectives 2021: Regulating in Times of Crisis, Tilburg University, Online, 21.05.2021.
▪ Bodies that Betray: EU’s Corporeal Borders. Geomedia 2021: Off the Grid, Universität Siegen, Online, 07.05.2021.
▪ Global Crisis, Local Platform: A Qualitative Analysis of Iran’s Online Educational Platform. First Annual Conference of the Platform Governance Research Network, Online, 24.3.2021
▪ Cyber-Surveillance as Spatial Injustice: The Case Study of Iran. Neue Kulturgeographie: Technocultures und Technoscapes, Bonn, Germany, 31.01.2020.
▪ Intelligent Filtering as Spatial|Data Injustice: The Case of Iran. IFIP Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management, Brugg/Windisch, Switzerland, 20.08.2019.
▪ Spatial|Data Justice: Mapping and Digitised Strolling Against Moral Police in Iran. “Urban Data, Inequality and Justice in the Global South” International Workshop, Manchester, GB, 14.06.2019.
▪ Contentious spaces: Resistance assemblages against moral police surveillance in Iran. 8th International Conference of Critical Geography, Athens, Greece, 21.04.2019.
▪ Follow the Thing: Data. VII. Interdisziplinärer Workshop: Privacy, Datenschutz & Surveillance, Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany, 11.12.2018.
▪ Travelogue of Surveillance Technologies: Touring Iranian Users’ Data with no Visa. Surveillance Studies Network – 8th Biennial Conference, Aarhus, Denmark, 08.06.2018.
▪ Political Spirituality and the Subject of Resistance. Neue Kulturgeographie: Materie, Materialien, Methoden, Freiburg, Germany, 27.01.2018.
▪ A Critical Study of Space: The Case of Iran’s Surveillance of Public and Digital Spaces. Geomedia 2017: Spaces of the In-Between, Karlstad, Sweden, 10.05.2017.
▪ Presenting the PhD Project, PhD students’ colloquium with Prof. Dr. Derek Gregory (British Columbia University), Heidelberg, Germany, 26.4.2017.
▪ Public harassment in Tehran: Gender performativity, shame, respectability and honour. INSEP2015 Conference: Violence, Representations and Sexuality, Ghent, Belgium, 14.07.2015.