Maastricht University

Graduate Student, Science and Technology Studies

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title: "Simulation and the Vulnerability of Technological Cultures"

About

I am currently a PhD Candidate at the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio within the Department of Technology and Society Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University.

In my dissertation, I ask how simulations and models enable knowledge of risks, and to what extent their use makes technological cultures susceptible to risks, e.g. through assumptions, uncertainties, and blind spots that may accompany the use of simulations and models.

To that end, I study epistemological, historical, institutional, and socio-political aspects of simulation practice. The empirical focus of the dissertation is water management in the Netherlands, where I did an ethnographic study of the use of simulations and models in hydrology (hydraulic engineering and flood monitoring), geotechnical engineering (soil mechanics and dike failure mechanisms), and ecology (participatory water quality modeling and governance in the context of the Water Framework Directive).

The project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Sally Wyatt and Prof. Dr. Wiebe Bijker.

More generally, my research interests are:

• History, sociology, and philosophy of science and technology
• Models and simulations, primarily in hydrology, geotechnical engineering, and ecology
• Risk, vulnerability, resilience
• Uncertainty and ignorance
• Participation and governance
• Sociology and philosophy of engineering
• Data visualization and studies of visual culture
• Software studies
• Craft, craftsmanship
• Materialism (e.g. Deleuze-Guattari, DeLanda, Alliez, Stengers)
• Various authors and topics in 'continental' philosophy (e.g. Spinoza, Nietzsche, Sloterdijk, Simondon, Foucault, Deleuze, Deleuze-Guattari, Stengers, Badiou, speculative realism, etc. etc.)

I did my MA in Philosophy in Amsterdam and Berlin, which I concluded by writing a thesis on the concept of technology in the work of Simondon, Deleuze, and Latour. Subsequently, I obtained my MSc in Science and Technology Studies in Amsterdam (cum laude), where I wrote a thesis on the Internet of Things, RFID, and data visualization. During my studies and before embarking on the PhD journey, I worked in software development.

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