Enschede, Overijssel, Netherlands
Researcher, lecturer, and editor with a special interest in the relationship between Science, Technology & Society approached from a long-term historical and digital perspective. My research and teaching focus on (colonial) histories of natural history, chemistry, and sustainability. This also includes work on how to contextualize archives and collections (e.g. in the fields of cultural and natural heritage) with AI driven and other computational technologies. Since autumn 2025, I am leading HAICu, a large research project and consortium (NWA/OCR HAICu, https://www.haicu.science/). Within HAICu, we co-design, develop, and evaluate new forms of AI driven access to large digitized multimodal cultural and natural heritage collections.
Most of my research and teaching examine the relationship between Science, Technology and Society from a long-term historical and digital perspective. I have a special interest in colonial histories of science (in particular: natural history and chemistry) and sustainability. This includes research into how computational technologies are used to contextualize and provide access to digitized archives and collections (e.g. biodiversity heritage collections with a colonial past)
Most of my research and teaching examine the relationship between Science, Technology and Society from a long-term historical and global perspective. I have a special interest in the history of natural history and chemistry in Indonesia and Europe. This includes research into how computational technologies are used to contextualize and provide access to digitized natural and cultural heritage collections.
Together with data scientists from Leiden and Groningen, heritage professionals from Naturalis Biodiversity Center, and the publishing house Brill, I'll be working on the project 'Making Sense of Illustrated Handwritten Archives'. This digital heritage project develops an online environment which is able to process and interlink heterogenous archival content.
Since 1st of April 2025, I am lead of the HAICu research consortium, a large scale research initiative in the field of Digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Heritage financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the National Science Agenda (NWA). In the coming years, I work with >50 fantastic colleagues in research and the cultural heritage field on co-developing new forms of AI driven access to digitized heritage collections.
https://www.haicu.science In the HAICu project, AI and Digital Humanities researchers, heritage professionals and engaged citizens aim for scientific breakthroughs in AI to open up, link and analyze in context large scale and heterogeneous multimodal digital heritage collections to facilitate user-assisted generation of fact-based narratives.