Software Engineer with a PhD in Digital Public Infrastructure

Working at the seams of identity, interoperability, and privacy in public sector, health, and humanitarian data

About Me

I’m Katherine Wyers, a software engineer with a PhD in digital public infrastructure. I work at the intersection of identity systems, interoperability, and privacy. My background spans humanitarian, public sector, and commercial data systems, with a research foundation examining how government identity infrastructure can exclude the populations it’s meant to serve. 

 

I have over a decade of experience building and leading data systems across humanitarian, NGO, and public sector contexts, working on identity and health data systems for refugee populations across active borders, and on clinical research in field settings. 

My PhD, completed at the University of Oslo, examined how large-scale government identity systems can exclude marginalised populations by design, focusing on the recategorisation of gender in Indian government information systems following the 2014 NALSA judgement. That research now shapes how I approach engineering and systems design directly. Identity infrastructure isn’t neutral, and getting it right requires understanding both the technical architecture and the populations it’s built to serve. 

I work hands-on in Python, Java, React, and PHP, with recent production contributions to the DHIS2 ecosystem, the world’s largest open-source health management information system. I’m currently based in Edinburgh and I’m affiliated with the University of Edinburgh. I’m exploring both consulting engagements and full-time roles in digital public infrastructure, open-source health systems, and humanitarian data platforms, where implementation takes inclusion seriously at the architectural level, not just the policy level. 

 

Case Studies

Data Quality

Between 2018 and 2019, I worked as a consultant at Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, a medical research centre on the Thailand-Myanmar border. The centre operated three regional …

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Gamified Digital Platform and CRM

From 2013 to 2017, I founded and ran a commercial startup company. Melody College was a live online music school. It provided in-person music tuition through a blended-learning model, with students connecting to their teachers through video calls. I built the digital platform based on …

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Data Pipeline

Between 2019 and 2021, I worked with M-FUND, a social enterprise based in Thailand and Myanmar that worked on providing universal health insurance coverage …

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Digital Transformation

In 2021, I was involved in the implementation of OpenEMIS, and open-source education management information system in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. My role was as a technical consultant, ensuring that the …

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Projects

Digital Identity Infrastructures and Intersectionality

This project explores the negative consequences of the recategorization of gender by governments. It applies critical, intersectional focus to information infrastructure theory. 

Outputs to date

  • Doctoral Thesis: ‘Information Infrastructural Violence’ available as Open Access
  • Several publications

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LGBTQ+ Identities and Digital Platforms

This project explores the concerns of digital identity platform owners and the challenges of identifying members of LGBTQ+ communities when those identities are vulnerable

Outputs to date

  • IFIP 2023 Conference Proceedings: Identity Platforms and Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation: Implications for Safeguarding Personal Data

Digital Infrastructures and Queer Joy

This project explores the relationship between LGBTQ+ people and digital infrastructures through the lens of queer joy, a theoretical lens that critically engages with themes of happiness and goodness.

This project is a cross-disciplinary collaboration with Dr. Zosia Kuczyńska, a specialist in Queer Joy Studies and Creative Archival Praxis. 

Output to date

  • July 2025: (Re)Imagining Digital Infrastructures and Queer Joy Presentation at ‘Queer Joy as a Digital Good’ symposium, University of Southampton
  • Nov 2025: ‘Trans Lives and the Slow Violence of Digital Infrastructures’ Presentation at ‘TRA*I Annual Conference’ Queens University Belfast.

Speaking

Upcoming

  • Jan 27th 2026: Driving Organizational Performance using an LGBTQ+ inclusive HR Strategy – Global Diversity and Equality Management, Human Resources Management Masters Course, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Past

  • Nov 21st 2025: Trans Lives and the Slow Violence of Digital Infrastructure – Trans Research Association Ireland Annual Symposium, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
  • Nov 18th 2025: Information Infrastructural Violence – Public Defence of Doctoral Thesis, University of Oslo, Norway
  • Oct 7th 2025: Are your Digital Records Erasing Identities? : Rethinking Gender Categories in Electronic Health Records – Digital Health, Masters-level course, University of Oslo, Norway
  • Sept 23rd 2025: Digital Infrastructures and Trans* Equity: Challenges and Pathways – ICT and Global Inequalities Masters-level course, University of Oslo, Norway
  • May 9th 2025: Are your Digital Records Erasing Identities?: Rethinking Gender Categories in Electronic Health Records – Skyehuspartner Oslo, Norway
  • Dec 22nd 2024: Co-design and gender in ICT4D/ICTD Research, ICTD2024 Conference, Nairobi, Kenya.
  • Sept 2024: Infrastructuring Gender Identities: The evolving representation of transgender identities in India’s public service information systems 2014-2024, Norwegian Queer Research Group
  • July 2024: Dropdown menus, identity categories, and bureaucratic discretion: How street-level bureaucrats shape social equity in welfare programmes, ICT4D North of England Workshop, University of Bradford, UK.
  • June 2024: Information Infrastructures and Transgender Equity: How the Indian State’s categorization of ‘transgender’ identities impacts on India’s transgender and gender diverse people, Pride@IFI Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo.

Blog

Contact Me

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