Dies Natalis events, Maastricht University

On 26 January 2018, Maastricht University celebrated its 42nd birthday. This year the theme was ‘The Future of a Data-Driven Society’. I was honoured to have been invited to give one of the lectures, the title of which is ‘Where is the knowledge we have lost in data?’ (riffing on Choruses from ‘The Rock’ by T. S. Eliot, a poem about looking for religious faith in the accelerating modern world). A recording of the lecture can be found here. My colleague, Michel Dumontier, Professor of Data Science, gave the other Dies lecture, called, ‘A social and technological infrastructure for data science’.

Two honorary doctorates were awarded to two outstanding women researchers – Carole Goble (Manchester) and Lucy Suchman (Lancaster). I am delighted to be the honorary supervisor for Professor Suchman, someone whose ground-breaking work in both ethnography and feminist technology studies I have admired for many years. Professors Suchman and Goble each gave keynote lectures at a symposium held the day before, on 25 January. Professor Suchman talked about her recent work on care robots. The entire event was recorded, and can be found via the symposium link. The presentations of the honorary doctorates and Lucy Suchman’s acceptance speech can be found here.