data, identity, infrastructure

technical lead for digital transformation in social enterprises and NGOs

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. 

 

I’m a technical lead specializing in digital identity systems and digital public infrastructure. Over the past 15 years, I’ve worked on a number of different projects in commercial, humanitarian, and NGO spaces, and examined how public sector identity reform can take place while reducing the risk of exclusion of marginalised people. 

From 2021 until 2026, I worked as a Digital Identity Infrastructure Researcher at the University of Oslo, where I examined how transformation of government data infrastructures in complex, multi-stakeholder environments can take place without leading to the exclusion of marginalised people. I worked closely with non-technical stakeholders in health and welfare, civil society, and members of the key population in India. During this time, I published a doctoral thesis and six academic articles on identity data, health informatics, personal data, and government handling of identity data. 

From 2017 to 2021, I was employed as a Senior Software Engineering Consultant to deliver data and digital solutions across multiple international NGOs, with a focus on refugees and vulnerable populations. My work spanned Thailand, Myanmar, and South Africa, supporting the design and implementation of data systems in health, education, and medical research. 

Between 2011 and 2016, I worked in the commercial startup space as a Founder CEO and Technical Lead for MelodyCollege.com, a live online music school with a gamified digital platform supporting a blended-learning approach to music tuition. During this time, I worked as a full-stack developer and digital marketer and built a global network of teachers and students in nine countries. 

I hold a PhD in Information Systems from the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.

I also have an MSc in Software Engineering and a BA(Hons) in Management.

 

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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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.

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

OpenValid for Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel

OpenValid is an open-source validation module for MS Access and MS Excel to improve data quality. It is used by NGOs and organizations in medical and humanitarian contexts to check whether data input is within valid ranges and prompts the user if the data is out of range. Started in 2018, the software is freely available for use under a creative commons license and is customizable for many different use-cases

Outputs to date

View All Projects

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.

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