I am a political economist and technology researcher linking technical systems, industrial dynamics, and political institutions to understand and shape structural socio-technological change. My work mainly concerns energy innovations, digitalization, infrastructure, raw materials, and advanced materials, as well as political economy issues such as power centralization and oligopolies. My research focuses on the risks and opportunities posed by contemporary challenges, particularly the hard-to-crack structural ones, which I believe to be both social and technical. Central to my work is a concern with ensuring a just sustainability transition.
My toolbox includes quantitative methods such as econometrics or risk modelling and qualitative methods such as interviews and policy analysis.
I teach at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business a regular undergraduate course on energy transitions.
Previously, I worked as a researcher at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, conducting foundational research on the co-evolution of energy systems, infrastructures, and society.
Alongside my academic work, I provide expert guidance to policymakers—supporting ministries as well as the European and Austrian Parliaments on issues related to emerging technologies as well as the European Commission regarding critical raw materials.
In parallel, I offer private consultancy on risk and uncertainty, geoeconomics, emerging technologies, and environmental issues through ChainRiskAnalytics, a company I co-founded. Further details can be found [here].
News and recent and upcoming presentations
05/2026 with Hendrik Theine, I published a new working paper “Becoming a State Project: Unpacking Power of Generative AI Companies” in the SET Lab Working Paper Series, Johannes Kepler University Linz.
11/2025 Presentation with Hendrik Theine on our current research, “Power and AI Conglomerates: A Multi-Dimensional, Heterodox Analysis,” at the ICAE research seminar, Johannes Kepler University Linz.
10/2025 With Michael Dorsch, I published an econometric article on the interactions between public salience, public policy, and the diffusion of energy storage technologies in Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions.
09/2025 I was certified as a Raw Materials Risk Manager by the IRTC and Fraunhofer.
07/2025 With Michael LaBelle, I published a peer-reviewed article on energy security and the integration of critical minerals into Europe’s single energy market in the proceedings of the Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM).
06/2025: 3rd CiRCLETECH Summer School, University of Miskolc, Hungary
- invited talk on “the geopolitics of critical raw materials”.
06/2024 TA24, Annual Conference of the Institute of Technology Assessment, Vienna, Austria
04/2024 European Parliament, Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA)
11/2023 University of Stuttgart, Department “Sociology of Technology, Risk and Environment”
- invited talk in departmental seminar on “Blackout prevention in Austria”