software engineer : identity and health data systems

PhD Digital Public Infrastructures | Python, Java Spring Boot, React, PHP

About Me

I’m Katherine Wyers. I have 15 years of experience delivering data systems across humanitarian, NGO, and commercial sectors. I specialise in digital identity systems and digital public infrastructure, and have a PhD where I examined how government data systems can be designed to avoid exclusion of marginalised populations. 

 

Software engineer with 12+ years building and leading delivery of identity and health data systems for refugee populations cross active borders, clinical research in field settings, and public infrastructure in low-resource contexts, working in PHP, VBA, and VueJS, with distributed team leadership throughout. My PhD research at the University of Oslo examined how large-scale government identity systems exclude marginalised populations by design. I now bring that understanding directly into engineering decisions. 

Currently rebuilding hands-on depth in Python, React, and Java, evidenced by production contributions to the DHIS2 ecosystem, the world’s largest open-source health management information system. Looking for engineering roles in digital public infrastructure, open-source health systems, or humanitarian data platforms where I can work on implementation that takes inclusion seriously at the architectural 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