Dani Shanley, Assistant Professor (D.A.)

I'm an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.  

    I work at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS), critical technology governance, and public engagement with technology. My work examines how narratives, expectations, and collective sense-making shape technological development and adoption.

    I am particularly interested in the role of hype as a sociotechnical governance mechanism, rather than mere noise or marketing. That is, hype as something that actively shapes funding, regulation, attention, and power dynamics. In my work, I try to think about asymmetric impacts and differentiated agency, asking explicitly: who benefits, who's harmed, and who has the capacity to resist or redirect hype? 

    I am ultimately interested in the question of what different actors are responsible for in technology governance—not just in terms of obligations, but in terms of capacity and positionality. In this sense, I have also started exploring refusal as a form of responsibility: when saying "no," slowing down, or declining to participate becomes not just legitimate but ethically necessary. 

    Throughout my research and teaching activities, I am largely interested in bridging academic analysis and practical intervention—creating tools that people can actually use.

    Within the faculty, I am the chair of the Critical Technoscience Platform, academic coordinator of the graduate school program, and incoming program director of the master programme, ESST (https://esst.eu/). 

    Across the University, I am a researcher at the Brightlands Institue for Smart Societies (https://www.biss-institute.com/) and a member of the Maastricht Young Academy (https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/maastricht-young-academy)  

    Externally, I am Associate Editor for the Journal of Responsible Technology (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-responsible-technology) and a founding member of the Hype Studies network (https://hypestudies.org/).