WELCOMING CAROLINE CROWLEY AS THE NEW EDITOR OF THE SUSTAINABLE SUBSEA COLUMN by Federica Tortorella and Nicole Starosielski Sustainable Subsea Networks (SSN) is pleased to announce that Caroline Crowley will serve as the new editor of the “Sustainable Subsea” column in Submarine Telecoms Forum, a leading source of news, analysis, and market intelligence for the global submarine cable industry. Sustainable Subsea Networks is a research initiative initially supported by the SubOptic Foundation and funded by the Internet Society Foundation. Today, SubOptic’s Sustainable Subsea Network Working Group brings together industry members from across the value chain with sustainability experts and academic researchers to assess and enhance the sustainability of the global subsea system, a network of fiber optic cables that carries nearly 99% of transoceanic internet traffic. “Sustainable Subsea” has been published bi-monthly since January of 2022. This month’s article, shepherded into production by Crowley, will be the column’s 27th release. “Sustainable Subsea” is the longest running, and todate, still the only regular source of news on subsea cable sustainability. Articles range from the coverage of Sustainable Subsea Networks researchers, to the latest subsea cable industry developments, to reviews of conferences by newcomers, and interviews with industry experts. Across these articles, authors have highlighted an array of perspectives on and challenges to enhancing subsea cable sustainability. Crowley joins the SSN team as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is pursuing a degree in Environmental Economics and Policy. As a former member of the SubOptic Sustainable Subsea Networks research team, she is currently developing a thesis on the environmental and economic dimensions of digital infrastructure, including the policy frameworks that shape their development and impact.
cole Starosielski had informally served as the column editor. Formalizing this role as a rotating editorship will enable researchers and industry members alike to participate in new and more active ways. Topics are developed by SubOptic’s Sustainable Subsea Networks Working Group. Crowley will work closely with industry members to bring the complexity of sustainability to SubTel’s readers as well as to translate these to a broader audience. The first article under Crowley’s editorship is authored by David Howard, René d’Avezac de Moran, and Derek Cassidy and featured in this issue of SubTel Forum. It focused on the marine aspects of subsea cables’ carbon budgets and the most promising alternative power options for future cable ships. As subsea cables continue to play a central role in enabling global communication, initiatives such SubOptic’s SSN Working Group can help companies to assess, document, and collaborate on sustainability. We are delighted to welcome Caroline Crowley to this role and look forward to her contributions to “Sustainable Subsea.” Caroline Crowley is an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley studying Environmental Economics and Policy and Data Science. Alongside experience in utilities, nonprofits, and federal agencies, she served as a research assistant to the SubOptic Foundation’s Sustainable Subsea Networks team, now moving towards a career in energy and infrastructure finance. Her research and upcoming thesis analyze the policies regulating the environmental and economic impact of data centers and other digital infrastructure.
For the past four years, UC Berkeley Professor NiSUBTEL FORUM | May 2026
31