We invited Red Hat Principal Kernel Engineer Toke Høiland-Jørgensen to interview Anna Brunström, currently a Full Professor and Research Manager for the Distributed Systems and Communications Research Group at Karlstad University, Sweden. Prof. Brunström has a background in distributed systems, but her main area of work over the last years has been in computer networking. Their wide-ranging conversation covers programmable networking, open data, diversity in IT fields, and more.