Journal

Digital hopes and fears in times of pandemic

Earlier this year, the corona virus started to take its toll around the world. It affects people’s health and daily lives, and healthcare systems. The economic well-being of individuals, companies, sectors and countries are threatened. This short article draws on input provided by early career researchers involved in the Digital Society Programme (that involves all […]

Health, Technology & Society: “Greatest Hits”

Together with Andrew Webster  (University of York, England), I have edited a book. It is both a celebration of the Health, Technology and Society series (published by Palgrave Macmillan) that we have jointly edited since 2006. In this compilation, we aim to capture examples of the excellent scholarship that the series produced and to reflect […]

Designing spaces for teaching and learning

On 22 October 2019, Anna Harris (Maastricht), Shanti Sumartojo (Monash) and I organised a workshop in Maastricht about how to design teaching and learning spaces, using tools from sensory and design ethnography. About 30 colleagues attended, and you can read more about it on the blog we prepared for the Teaching and Learning blog of […]

Lectures & other presentations in 2020

One of the best things about my work is the opportunity to meet interesting people in interesting places, to share ideas and learn from them. That came to an abrupt halt in March 2020. Below is a list of the events from the early part of the year. We are still waiting to see what […]

Videos – life in STS and lecture about data

In September 2019, while attending the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) conference in Sydney, Australia, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Joseph Klett, Science History Institute, Philadelphia, for an oral history project about the development of science and technology studies (STS). He had some great questions, including: When did you first […]

Libraries, memories, voting, specula

I occasionally dabble in other bits of writing, beyond my main academic concerns of things to do with digital technologies. In recent months, I’ve written about the London Library, the injustice of not being able to vote in the Netherlands, the memories contained in a small wooden box, and my life through cervical smears. Memories […]

Podcast with Society for Risk Analysis

I attended the conference of the Society for Risk Analysis (Benelux) held in Luxembourg in March 2019. While there, I was interviewed for their podcast series. They have a number of excellent podcasts on a variety of topics, including food, extreme weather and communicating about risk on social media. I appear in an episode called […]

Columns in Observant, Maastricht University newspaper

Columns in Observant, Maastricht University newspaper

Between 2017-20, I wrote occasional columns for Observant, the independent newspaper of Maastricht University. It was fun, reaching out to a different kind of audience – academic, but not necessarily research focused. Sticking to 400 words, and not including copious references and nuanced explanation was a challenge. My first column appeared in the first week […]

Engaging with artists

On 15 January, I took part in the new year opening of the Brightlands Smart Services campus in Heerlen. Marc Wouters (Adviser to the Brightlands CEO) invited Geert Mul (video and sound artist) and myself to reflect on ‘technology and society’. This was prompted by a position paper Marc wrote earlier in the year to […]

Russian User Studies

At the end of November 2018, I had the enormous privilege and pleasure to take part in the Russian User Studies conference in St Petersburg, hosted by the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Science and financially supported by the Russian Science Foundation. Traditionally, Science and Technology Studies (STS) has paid lots of attention […]