Gesa Ziemer (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor for Digital Urban Cultures at the HafenCity University Hamburg.
She heads the CityScienceLab, a cooperation with the MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, MA, USA), which researches on the future of cities (with a special focus put on digitalisation).
She is also the academic director of UNITAC, a United Nations Innovation and Technology Lab (UN Habitat, OICT) that conducts global research on the use of technology in informal settlements.
She was a fellow of the Humboldt Foundation (Feodor-Lynen Program) at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Her research foci are: the digital city, new forms of collaboration and urban spaces.
She is a member of the Accreditation Committee of the Scientific Council of Germany and holds a Guest Lectureship at
Lucerne School of Art and Design in Switzerland.
Until mid of 2023 is a member of the Accreditation Committee of the German Science Council and on the UNESCO jury for the Learning Cities Programme.
She is a member of the Research Committee of The Interface Society and the sounding board of RISE Cities, BMW foundation.
She regularly serves as an evaluator, i.a. for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Swiss National Science Fund, German Federal Ministries and private foundations.
From 2012 to 2020 she was Vice President Research at HafenCity University Hamburg.
Publications (selected): Digital City Science (editor, Jovis). Performing Citizenship. Bodies, Agencies, Limitations (editor, Palgrave). New Stakeholders of Urban Change (editor, Jovis). Komplizenschaft - Neue Perspektiven auf Kollektivität (monography, transcript).