Physical and digital infrastructures have raised tensions around the world, seeding land disputes, climate effects, and disrupting social fabrics. Yet they are also intertwined with myths of progress, transformation, and speculation. What does this friction reveal? How can the stories we tell about infrastructures illuminate problems and lead us toward solutions? What do these stories say about where power lies and how it shifts? How might they help surface connections across nations, communities, and cultures?

To explore these questions and themes, we will be joined by Nia Johnson, Ekene Ijeoma, and Lori Regattieri — academics, practitioners, and artists who are each, in their own way, responding to the ways digital infrastructures are transforming the built, natural, and social environments. In a conversation moderated by Trustworthy Infrastructures Program Director Maia Woluchem, we will break down confrontations between technological infrastructures and local communities and discuss how to  reshape narratives of process, power, change, and futurity.

This public panel is part of Connective (t)Issues, a Data & Society workshop organized by the Trustworthy Infrastructures program in partnership with Duke Science & Society. The team of organizers includes Maia Woluchem, Livia Garofalo, Joan Mukogosi, Sareeta Amrute, Robyn Caplan, and Christen Dobson, with production by Tunika Onnekikami and additional support from Siera Dissmore.

Accessibility

For security reasons, we require guests to have an authorized Zoom account in order to participate. To register, sign up for a free Zoom account. Otherwise, please stay tuned for video to be posted on our website soon after the event. Closed captioning provided. Please email [email protected] with any other accessibility needs at least 72 hours prior to the event. Documentation, including video, transcript, and resources, will be available on our website afterwards.

Nia Johnson

Nia Johnson’s scholarship lies at the intersection of health law, bioethics, and race and the law. Her work studies discrimination in healthcare delivery, public health infrastructure development, and political forces that disrupt public health initiatives. She accomplishes this by analyzing the impact of anti-Black racism in the healthcare system, examining where the law has been a tool for achieving better healthcare allocation and where it may undermine the public health concerns of Black Americans. Her scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the Michigan Journal of Race and Law, UC Law Journal, JAMA Health Forum, and the Hastings Center Report. She received the Wilhelmina M. Reuben-Cooke Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practices Fellowship from the Duke Endowment and Duke University’s Office of the Provost and the Duke Initiative for Science and Society Faculty and Staff Leadership Award.

Johnson received her bachelor of arts in international studies at Oakwood University, her master of bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania, and her law degree from Boston University School of Law, where she served as the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Law and Medicine. She earned her PhD in health policy, with a concentration in political analysis, from Harvard University.

Ekene Ijeoma | @ekeneijeoma

Ekene Ijeoma is an interdisciplinary artist who researches the impacts of unjust systems and develops artworks that poetically expose inequity or engage people in collaboratively changing society. His data-driven and interactive multimedia works include a series of performances in which notes are removed from “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the increasing rate of incarceration in the US, a light installation that invites participants to synchronize their breathing with his, and another that invites them to hold hands. His work has been presented by the Onassis Foundation, Van Alen Institute, the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, The Arts Club of Chicago, Kennedy Center, Annenberg Space for Photography, Neuberger Museum of Art, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Museum of Modern Art. His work has also been supported by New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital, Map Fund, and Wave Farm.

Lori Regattieri | @followlori.bsky.social

Lori Regattieri (they/them) is a public interest technologist working for a just energy transition and territorial rights. As a consultant in the philanthropic and nonprofit sector, they work to catalyze collaboration and build south-south coalitions to address the intersection of climate justice and emerging technologies. Previously, they were a senior fellow focused on trustworthy AI at the Mozilla Foundation. Regattieri was awarded the Media Ecology Association’s 2024 Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism. More info: eco-midia.com.

References

• Intimate Confession Is a Project | Blaffer Art Museum (Houston, TX) exhibition curated by Jennifer Teets, October 27, 2023 – March 10, 2024

Readings

• Intimate Confession Is a Project, edited by Jennifer Teets, Inventory Press (2025)
• “Lost Cities of the Amazon: How Science is Revealing Ancient Garden Towns Hidden in the Rainforest,” by Mac Margolis, The Guardian