Dr Heemsbergen researches socio-technological futures at Deakin University, Australia. As an Early Career Researcher in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, and member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, his work focuses on intersections of digital technlogy and everyday politics that form new cultures, norms, and ways that humans govern themselves and each other. This includes focussed interest on how digital media make things visible in new ways, including through Generative AI,  Augmented Reality, 3D printing, and radical networked transparency projects. His research findings are published in top tier academic journal (NMS, IJOC, IPR, Futures, etc.). His work is also drawn upon in leading news organisations (The New York Times, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (TV and online), News Corp, Australian Financial Review, Wired, etc.) for topics as wide ranging from NFTs to WikiLeaks. His first book “Radical transparency and digital democracy: Wikileaks and beyond” is published by Emerald.

His affiliations (2023) include: Co-Lead of the Critical Digital Infrastructures and Interfaces research group, Co-Lead Immersive Realities – Deakin Motion Lab; Member, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Science and Society Network and the Centre for Cyber Resilience and Trust. He was appointed to the ARC funded Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child as an Associate Investigator in 2023 to study on how children are growing up with AR and AI in their midst. 

Before receiving a PhD from the University of Melbourne he work with Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and previous to that, was interested in a different sort of mediation, regarding international relations conflict management and resolution, and previous to that worked in proliferation risk in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

He lives with his family of four in a home in the hills, up in the rainforest overlooking Melbourne.