Dr. Michelle Pfeifer is postdoctoral research associate at the Chair for Digital Cultures at TUD Dresden University of Technology. Their research is located at the intersections of (digital) media technology, migration and border studies, and gender and sexuality studies and explores the role of media technology in the production of legal and political knowledge amidst struggles over mobility and movement(s) in postcolonial Europe. Michelle earned their PhD at the department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.

They are currently working on a book manuscript titled Data on the Move: Voice, Algorithms, and Asylum in Digital Borderlands that takes the so-called refugee crisis as a point of departure to probe how algorithmic and sonic media infrastructures have been employed for migration control, border policing, and asylum administration on a planet where global displacement has become a new norm. Michelle’s research has been published in journals including Citizenship Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Culture Machine and the anthology Thinking with an Accent from the University of California Press. They co-organized the international conferences “Sexuality and Borders” at NYU and “When was the Smart Border?” at TUD.