Professor Sally Wyatt (scientific director)
Sally Wyatt is Professor of 'digital cultures in development', Maastricht University, and senior research fellow with the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences, KNAW.
Her background is in economics (BA McGill, 1976; MA Sussex, 1979) and science and technology studies (PhD Maastricht, 1998). She has more than 25 years experience in teaching and research about technology policy and about the relationship between technological and social change, focusing particularly on issues of social exclusion and inequality. She has worked at the Universities of Sussex, Brighton, East London and Amsterdam as well as at the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
She co-ordinates PhD training in the Dutch Research School for Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC) (with Els Rommes, Radboud University). She was President of EASST (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology) between 2001-4. Recently, she has worked on the internet and social exclusion and the ways in which people incorporate the internet into their practices for finding health information. Together with Andrew Webster, she is editor of a new book series, Health, Technology and Society (Palgrave Macmillan).
Bas van Heur (postdoc)
I am currently a post-doc at the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio, Maastricht University, within the project 'Cities and Citizens Writing History and Shaping the Future'. My research for this project builds on earlier work in the fields of cultural history, geography, media and cultural studies as well as urban studies, but continues these interests in an explicitly transdisciplinary setting. Having studied at Utrecht University (MA Cultural History, 2004) and the Humboldt University in Berlin, I started my PhD in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Relocating to Berlin, I was a DFG-Fellow at the Center for Metropolitan Studies and recently submitted my PhD dissertation ('Networks of Aesthetic Production and the Urban Political Economy') at the Department of Earth Sciences of the Free University in Berlin. I have also taught various courses in media and cultural studies at Utrecht University and Goldsmiths College.
My empirical research interests are diverse and wide-ranging, but always focus on the emergent tensions between political economic transformations and cultural and aesthetic practices. So far, this has led to research on transnational ethnic conflicts (MA thesis), music networks and the creative industries (PhD) and urban branding, local histories and digitalization (for the current post-doc). Theoretically, I am interested in those approaches that try to answer the grand, general questions concerning socio-spatial change, while remaining sensitive to the differentiation of the contemporary world. This includes work on the regulation approach, state theory, critical geography, network theories, governance and governmentality, knowledge and innovation, historical sociology and cultural political economy. I have also become increasingly interested in methodological debates in the field of critical realism and complexity studies as well as research on the temporality and historicity of social life.
Jess Bier is a new Ph.D. candidate in the department of Technology and Society Studies who is working under the guidance of Sally Wyatt and Bas van Heur. Jess is located in the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio, where she is writing her dissertation on the recent transition to digital cartography in Jerusalem. Overall, her research aims to better understand the ways that conceptions of materiality influence scientific practice, and she specifically analyzes how the production of urban space, and resulting forms of segregation, inform the process of making digital maps. She also examines the role of technology in mapmaking, including the effect of the use of computers upon the development and communication of spatial data.
Jess comes to Maastricht University from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, where she earned her M.Phil. degree in geography with a study of the historical geographies of Arab Americans. This research investigated the influences of daily economic life upon conceptions of gender, race, and ancestry in the early 20th-century Syrian and Syrian American communities of New York City. In the past, Jess has worked as a freelance cartographer, mapping consultant, and community organizer, and she has taught or co-taught courses in geography, mathematics, physics, and academic writing. Her interests include critical cartography, the philosophy of science, political economy, postcolonial studies and the geography of the Middle East, as well as the history of mathematics and computers.
Matthijs Kouw (PhD candidate)
Matthijs Kouw is a PhD researcher for the M-VKS - a collaboration between the Virtual Knowledge Studio in Amsterdam, and the Maastricht University. His current research focuses on the ways in which simulations enable knowledge of complex systems.
By studying the epistemological, historical, and social dimensions of simulations, his research will improve understanding of how different social groups deploy simulations, and the extent in which modeling and simulation are influenced by new technological developments, such as interconnected data sources and increases in computational power. In this regard, simulations are understood as being both harmful societal prostheses that make contemporary societies more dependent on technology, and innovative instruments with emancipatory effects due to their ability to make societies more resilient to external influences.
Matthijs obtained his MA in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam (2005), where he focused on philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, (new) media theory, and contemporary French thought (Bergson, Simondon, Deleuze, Alliez). His thesis developed a conceptualization of technology in the work of Deleuze and Guattari along the lines of an early essay on Simondon by Deleuze.
An additional MSc in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Amsterdam (2006) culminated in a thesis discussing the incursion of the Internet into the material world - the so-called 'Internet of Things'. Epistemological repercussions of this phenomenon stress the need for certain innovations in the realm of data modeling and visualization: rather than emphasizing states of affairs, visual representations need to affirm the informational multi-dimensionality of the material-informational world by articulating inclinations and probabilities rather than states of affairs.
After spending some time working in the field of innovation policy, technology assessment, and software development, Matthijs decided to further pursue an academic trajectory that met his desire to understand the ways in which technology and society are intertwined. He is currently engaging the field of simulation and modeling along the aforementioned lines under the supervision of prof. dr. Sally Wyatt and prof. dr. ir. Wiebe Bijker.
Sally Wyatt is Professor of 'digital cultures in development', Maastricht University, and senior research fellow with the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences, KNAW.
Her background is in economics (BA McGill, 1976; MA Sussex, 1979) and science and technology studies (PhD Maastricht, 1998). She has more than 25 years experience in teaching and research about technology policy and about the relationship between technological and social change, focusing particularly on issues of social exclusion and inequality. She has worked at the Universities of Sussex, Brighton, East London and Amsterdam as well as at the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
She co-ordinates PhD training in the Dutch Research School for Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC) (with Els Rommes, Radboud University). She was President of EASST (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology) between 2001-4. Recently, she has worked on the internet and social exclusion and the ways in which people incorporate the internet into their practices for finding health information. Together with Andrew Webster, she is editor of a new book series, Health, Technology and Society (Palgrave Macmillan).
Bas van Heur (postdoc)
I am currently a post-doc at the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio, Maastricht University, within the project 'Cities and Citizens Writing History and Shaping the Future'. My research for this project builds on earlier work in the fields of cultural history, geography, media and cultural studies as well as urban studies, but continues these interests in an explicitly transdisciplinary setting. Having studied at Utrecht University (MA Cultural History, 2004) and the Humboldt University in Berlin, I started my PhD in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Relocating to Berlin, I was a DFG-Fellow at the Center for Metropolitan Studies and recently submitted my PhD dissertation ('Networks of Aesthetic Production and the Urban Political Economy') at the Department of Earth Sciences of the Free University in Berlin. I have also taught various courses in media and cultural studies at Utrecht University and Goldsmiths College.
My empirical research interests are diverse and wide-ranging, but always focus on the emergent tensions between political economic transformations and cultural and aesthetic practices. So far, this has led to research on transnational ethnic conflicts (MA thesis), music networks and the creative industries (PhD) and urban branding, local histories and digitalization (for the current post-doc). Theoretically, I am interested in those approaches that try to answer the grand, general questions concerning socio-spatial change, while remaining sensitive to the differentiation of the contemporary world. This includes work on the regulation approach, state theory, critical geography, network theories, governance and governmentality, knowledge and innovation, historical sociology and cultural political economy. I have also become increasingly interested in methodological debates in the field of critical realism and complexity studies as well as research on the temporality and historicity of social life.
Jess Bier (PhD Candidate)
Jess Bier is a new Ph.D. candidate in the department of Technology and Society Studies who is working under the guidance of Sally Wyatt and Bas van Heur. Jess is located in the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio, where she is writing her dissertation on the recent transition to digital cartography in Jerusalem. Overall, her research aims to better understand the ways that conceptions of materiality influence scientific practice, and she specifically analyzes how the production of urban space, and resulting forms of segregation, inform the process of making digital maps. She also examines the role of technology in mapmaking, including the effect of the use of computers upon the development and communication of spatial data.
Jess comes to Maastricht University from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, where she earned her M.Phil. degree in geography with a study of the historical geographies of Arab Americans. This research investigated the influences of daily economic life upon conceptions of gender, race, and ancestry in the early 20th-century Syrian and Syrian American communities of New York City. In the past, Jess has worked as a freelance cartographer, mapping consultant, and community organizer, and she has taught or co-taught courses in geography, mathematics, physics, and academic writing. Her interests include critical cartography, the philosophy of science, political economy, postcolonial studies and the geography of the Middle East, as well as the history of mathematics and computers.
Matthijs Kouw (PhD candidate)
Matthijs Kouw is a PhD researcher for the M-VKS - a collaboration between the Virtual Knowledge Studio in Amsterdam, and the Maastricht University. His current research focuses on the ways in which simulations enable knowledge of complex systems.
By studying the epistemological, historical, and social dimensions of simulations, his research will improve understanding of how different social groups deploy simulations, and the extent in which modeling and simulation are influenced by new technological developments, such as interconnected data sources and increases in computational power. In this regard, simulations are understood as being both harmful societal prostheses that make contemporary societies more dependent on technology, and innovative instruments with emancipatory effects due to their ability to make societies more resilient to external influences.
Matthijs obtained his MA in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam (2005), where he focused on philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, (new) media theory, and contemporary French thought (Bergson, Simondon, Deleuze, Alliez). His thesis developed a conceptualization of technology in the work of Deleuze and Guattari along the lines of an early essay on Simondon by Deleuze.
An additional MSc in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Amsterdam (2006) culminated in a thesis discussing the incursion of the Internet into the material world - the so-called 'Internet of Things'. Epistemological repercussions of this phenomenon stress the need for certain innovations in the realm of data modeling and visualization: rather than emphasizing states of affairs, visual representations need to affirm the informational multi-dimensionality of the material-informational world by articulating inclinations and probabilities rather than states of affairs.
After spending some time working in the field of innovation policy, technology assessment, and software development, Matthijs decided to further pursue an academic trajectory that met his desire to understand the ways in which technology and society are intertwined. He is currently engaging the field of simulation and modeling along the aforementioned lines under the supervision of prof. dr. Sally Wyatt and prof. dr. ir. Wiebe Bijker.
