Carola Westermeier To Lead New Lise Meitner Research Group at MPIfG

Carola Westermeier will join the MPIfG in April 2025 as the leader of a new Lise Meitner Research Group on Technology and Sovereignty, which will begin in October 2025. The new group will research at the intersections of economic sociology, international political economy, and critical security studies.

Among its central research interests are the complex relationships between technology companies and state actors and the increasing efforts that are being made to achieve digital, technological, and monetary sovereignty. The group will focus on digital currencies, technopolitics, economic statecraft, and the role of digital infrastructures in geopolitical contexts. As its overarching question, it will explore how political demands for sovereignty and security manifest in technologies and how these technologies in turn affect socioeconomic relations.

Until March 2025, Westermeier will continue as ZEVEDI Young Investigator at the Technical University of Darmstadt’s Institute of Sociology. Prior to her current role, she was a lecturer and researcher at the Institute for Sociology of Justus Liebig University Gießen and from 2021 to 2023 a visiting professor of international relations and international political economy at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research has explored the finance/security nexus in post-crisis financial market regulation, payment technologies in the data economy, and the role of technologies and infrastructures in geopolitical disputes.

The Max Planck Society’s Lise Meitner Excellence Program was introduced in 2018 to promote exceptional female scientists. Selected scholars have the opportunity to take part in a tenure track process that can lead to a permanent W2 position and thereafter potentially to inclusion in the pool of candidates for directorial positions at Max Planck Institutes.