I am an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington. Currently, I’m also a British Academy Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Outer Space Studies at University College London and a Fulbright Arctic Initiative scholar.
As a political geographer with geospatial skills, I trace, map, and critique processes of Arctic frontier-making from the edges of settler colonial states and orbits of space powers like China to the depths of Indigenous lands. Experimental methods including ethnographic and digital fieldwork, visual and discourse analysis, satellite remote sensing, and cartography are central to my work.
At the moment, I am examining how the frontiers of the Arctic and outer space are intersecting through case studies involving the rise of Starlink satellite internet and the development of commercial spaceports and ground stations in places like Kodiak, Alaska and Svalbard, Norway.
With colleagues, I’m also working to advance the subfield of critical remote sensing. We advocate for: 1) using satellite imagery to expose social and environmental justice; 2) engaging groups typically left outside remote sensing’s community of practice; and 3) empowering new users with the tools to do remote sensing themselves – and reimagine the technology, too. I’m also interested in expanding the notion of remote sensing beyond machine instruments to consider, for instance, Indigenous and traditional observing methods.
I’ve done fieldwork on bridges both real and imagined in the Russian Far East, on a new highway to the Arctic Ocean in Canada’s Northwest Territories, atop the melting Greenland Ice Sheet, and inside air-conditioned offices in Singapore. During my British Academy fellowship at UCL, I’m examining the politics and cultures of Starlink, Elon Musk’s internet megaconstellation in Low Earth Orbit.
My research has been supported by generous grants from the British Academy, Fulbright Association, Regional Studies Association, National Science Foundation, International Council for Canadian Studies, the UCLA College of Social Sciences, American Geophysical Union’s Cryosphere Focus Group, the UCLA Canadian Studies Program, and the UCLA Urban Humanities Institute. I also collaborate with the InfraNorth project at the University of Vienna. I have been a visiting researcher at institutions including UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø and the University of Heidelberg’s Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies. Previously, I taught in the Department of Geography and School of Modern Languages & Cultures (China Studies Programme) at the University of Hong Kong.
I received a PhD in Geography from UCLA, where I was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. I also participated in the NSF Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide program at the University of Vienna. Prior to that, I obtained an MPhil in Polar Studies from the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute with the support of a Gates Scholarship.
My book with Klaus Dodds, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic was published in autumn 2025 in the US and UK by Yale University Press. My academic publications are listed in Google Scholar and available to read on academia.edu and ResearchGate. I share square-sized photographs on Instagram, post videos of unimpressive skiing in impressive surroundings on YouTube, and put blog updates on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Email me at miabenn at uw dot edu or send a message using the form below, and I’ll do my best to respond to you in English, Russian, French, or Swedish.
