Announcing the Instructors for the Summer 2025 Global Digital Infrastructure Certificate
The University of California Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) is excited to announce the distinguished instructors for its Summer 2025 Global Digital Infrastructure Certificate courses. Created in partnership with industry organizations Infrastructure Masons (“iMasons”) and the SubOptic Foundation, the Global Digital Infrastructure Certificate is the first program to introduce students to the technical, economic, legal, environmental, and social dimensions of the rapidly evolving field of the global Internet’s infrastructure, including both data centers and subsea telecommunications cables. The instructors bring a wealth of expertise and experience to the program, ensuring a comprehensive and enriching learning experience.
Erick Contag
Lead Instructor: NWMEDIA 132 — How to Build a Global Internet: Digital Infrastructure Projects from Subsea Cables to Data Centers
Erick Contag (President – Board of Trustees | SubOptic Foundation; Founder – CEO | StratWorks, Inc; Independent Board Member | Padtec; Co-Founder & Board Advisor | Seafields Solutions, Ltd; Former CEO and Executive Chairman | GlobeNet Cabos Submarinos) is a seasoned strategist driven by his passion for building and managing sustainable digital infrastructures. With over twenty-five years of executive management, entrepreneurship, marketing & sales, and business development experience, he specializes in building high-performance teams, fostering growth, and scalability.
Mr. Contag has been responsible for managing C-level relationships and telecommunications / high-technology projects for start-up enterprises through large multi-national and Global 100 companies. He has proven success in starting, building, and operating telecommunications / subsea networks, and colocation / data centers infrastructure and high-tech businesses. Mr. Contag was awarded three times the Global Telecoms Business Power 100 Award, an honor bestowed upon the most powerful 100 executives in the telecom industry.
Mr. Contag has held executive positions in the U.S. and Latin America and serves on the Board of Directors of several companies and industry associations. He believes in giving back to society through education and research programs.
Mr. Contag holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tulsa, U.S. and an Executive Engineering Management certification from Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA). More recently, he attended the Executive Program at Singularity University.
Joseph B. Keller
Lead Instructor: NWMEDIA 133 — Tech Wars: Security, Geopolitics, and Resilience of Digital Infrastructures
Joseph B. Keller is a neuroscientist-turned global technology policy researcher and lecturer. His research interests explore emerging technologies and their governance implications for security, geopolitics, and the environment, including a focus on subsea cable security challenges and the environmental impacts of AI research and development.
Previously, Keller was a visiting fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. At the American Psychological Association, he was a senior director of congressional and federal relations, managing a broad advocacy portfolio. Prior to the association, he served as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. National Science Foundation with AAAS, facilitating international grant-making programs related to advanced computing. He has also worked as an executive search consultant in the civic sector.
Keller holds degrees from UMBC, Boston University, and a doctorate in cognitive science from MIT. Currently, he serves as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University, a Nonresident Fellow with the Brookings Institution's AI and Emerging Technology Initiative, and was an AI Fellow with the Horizon Institute for Public Service.
Nicole Starosielski
Lead Instructor: NWMEDIA 131 — Digital Infrastructure 101: The Hidden Foundations of the Internet
Co-Instructor: NWMEDIA 132 — How to Build a Global Internet: Digital Infrastructure Projects from Subsea Cables to Data Centers; NWMEDIA 133 — Tech Wars: Security, Geopolitics, and Resilience of Digital Infrastructures
Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film and Media at the University of California-Berkeley and the Berkeley Center for New Media, conducts research on global internet infrastructure, with a focus on the subsea cables that carry almost 100% of transoceanic internet traffic. Starosielski is author or co-editor of over thirty articles and five books on media, infrastructure, and environments, including: The Undersea Network (2015), which chronicled the history and present of the subsea telecommunications cable network from the 1800s to today.
Over the past several years, Starosielski has been working with the SubOptic Association and Foundation to develop research and educational programs to support the subsea cable industry. Starosielski is also a co-convenor of the SubOptic Association’s Global Citizen Working Group and a Principal Investigator on a SubOptic project to enhance the strategic resilience of subsea cables in the Caribbean. Starosielski's most recent project, Sustainable Subsea Networks (https://www.sustainablesubseanetworks.com/), works to enhance the sustainability of subsea cable infrastructures. The project has developed a catalog of best practices for sustainability in the subsea cable and a carbon footprint of a subsea cable.
Starosielski launched the Certificate in Global Digital Infrastructure in 2025, in collaboration with the Berkeley Center for New Media, the SubOptic Foundation, iMasons, Data Center Dynamics, and Telegeography.
Iago Bojczuk
Global Research Fellow
Iago Bojczuk is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is broadly interested in the geography of media and communication, as well as the interplay between global development, digitalization, and multilateralism. More specifically, his work lies at the intersection of digital infrastructures and sustainability, science and technology policy, and the governance of large-scale socio-technical systems in the Global South.
Iago’s writing has been published in Media, Culture & Society; Global Media and Communication; e-Flux Magazine; SubTel Forum; SubOptic Foundation; and in official UN publications. He has been involved in research projects on broadband and 5G networks, fiber-optic subsea cables, data centers, and communication satellites, and has held consultancy and internship positions with the World Bank’s Vice Presidency for Infrastructure, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Most recently, Iago was a visiting doctoral scholar in the Department of International Relations and the Center for Computational Social Science at Koç University in İstanbul, Türkiye. Originally from Brazil, Iago holds a Master of Science in Comparative Media Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies from the University of Oregon.
Kristina Lapinski
Communications Director & Program Manager
Kristina Lapinski is a strategic communications leader with 15 years of experience in developing high-impact campaigns and amplifying stories across sustainability, social justice, and cultural advocacy. She specializes in storytelling, stakeholder engagement, and program management, leveraging her skills to build partnerships among academia, industry leaders, policymakers, and community organizations.
Kristina is the founder of Heyday Collective, a consultancy and production company serving nonprofits, foundations, startups, and global media brands such as MSNBC and Warner Brothers. Her work has spanned grassroots advocacy initiatives to producing national communications campaigns featuring Governors and members of Congress. She has also programmed large-scale conferences and high-impact forums, including a leadership development summit for C-suite women executives at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus.
Kristina leads communications strategy and program management for the Global Digital Infrastructure Certificate. Her work reflects a commitment to social justice and environmental sustainability through innovative communications and programmatic leadership. Kristina holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Santa Cruz.
For more information, please visit BCNM’s Digital Infrastructures website.
Contact: Berkeley Center for New Media at info.bcnm [at] berkeley.edu