Niels is a postdoctoral researcher with the ‘Making the hidden visible: Co-designing for public values in standards-making and governance’-project at the University of Amsterdam. He is also a research fellow with the Centre for Internet and Human Rights at the European University Viadrina and an associated scholar with the Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas.
Niels is an active particpant in ICANN, RIPE, the IETF, and the IRTF. He served as a subgroup rapporteur during the IANA stewardship transition, chaired the Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group in the IRTF, and authored RFC 8280. He also co-wrote the IEEE Guidelines on Ethically Aligned Design. His PhD dissertation focused on the role of norms in Internet governance.
Niels served on the board of ISOC Netherlands where he led several projects and masterclasses, for instance, a project on providing Internet access to refugees and migrants. Niels also served on the board of the Ranking Digital Rights Foundation and the board of the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO).
Previously, Niels worked as Head of Digital at ARTICLE19, an international freedom of expression organization, where he designed, fund-raised, and set up the digital programme which covered the IETF, ICANN, the IEEE, and the ITU. Before that Niels designed and implemented freedom of expression projects with Free Press Unlimited. He holds a cum laude MA in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam.
