Katleen Gabriels (K.)

Dr. Katleen Gabriels is a moral philosopher and a philosopher of technology, specialised in philosophical and ethical aspects of technology. She works as an Associate Professor at Maastricht University (FASoS, Department of Philosophy). She investigates the mutual shaping of morality and computer technologies (e.g., AI; monitoring technologies; IoT; VR/XR). She publishes both conceptual, philosophical research and studies that conjoin a strong grounding in philosophy with empirical studies. Her research has been published in, amongst others, Computers in Human Behavior; New Media & Society; Journal of Medical Internet Research; Science and Engineering Ethics; IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE; Ethics and Information Technology; Journal of Moral Education. From August 2020 to September 2024, she was the programme director of the interdisciplinary BA Digital Society. She has been a member of the Maastricht Young Academy since 2022. Since 2023, she has been the UM theme coordinator for the SSH sector plan themes ‘Humane AI’ (humanities) and ‘The Human Factor in New Technologies’ (social sciences). At FASoS, she is a member of the interdisciplinary research group Maastricht University Science, Technology and Society Studies (MUSTS) and the Critical Technoscience Platform (CTP).

She holds BA and MA degrees in Germanic Philology from KU Leuven and BA and MA degrees in Moral Sciences from Ghent University and a doctoral degree (2014) in Philosophy and Moral Sciences from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where she worked as a postdoctoral researcher from 2014 to 2017. She was a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna (2016). From April 2017 to December 2018, she was an Assistant Professor in the research group Philosophy and Ethics at the Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). The Willy Calewaert-Chair 2018-2019 (demens.nu) was awarded to her by the faculty Engineering Sciences of the VUB.

Since 2015, she has been a steering committee member (and former chair—2021-2025) of ETHICOMP, an international academic organisation that occupies itself with ethical computing. Since 2019, she has been an affiliate member of 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology. Since 2020, she has been an elected executive board member of INSEIT (International Society for Ethics and Information Technology), an academic association that promotes scholarship and debate on ethical issues in information technology. INSEIT organises the CEPE conferences (Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry). 

Her monograph Conscientious AI. Machines Learning Morals (VUBPRESS, 2020) explores the ethical challenges and opportunities of AI. Conscientious AI is the English version of her second monograph Regels voor robots (VUBPRESS, 2019). The book is a translation of academic research, including the lectures for the Calewaert chair, to engineers and computer scientists, but found its way to the general public. Regels voor robots was nominated for the Hypatia prize (shortlist), biennial prize for the best philosophy book written by a Dutch-speaking, female philosopher, and for the Socrates Wisselbeker (longlist), the prize for the best philosophy book of the Netherlands and Flanders. Her first book Onlife. Hoe de digitale wereld je leven bepaalt (How digitalisation shapes your life) was published in 2016 (Lannoo) and won the Liberales Book of the Year 2016-award. In September 2021, she was awarded the Edmond Hustinx Prize for Science. 

She has built relevant expertise in science communication: from publishing opinion pieces and popular-scientific books to providing comments in regional, national, and international spoken and written media, including Wired and the American magazine Vox. She was an invited (keynote) speaker at events such as POLITICO’s AI Summit (2020), Gala van de Wetenschap (2020), New Scientist Live (2019), Nerdland (2022), and the Nationale Wetenschapscommunicatiedag (2023). 

Since 2023, she has been a co-investigator in the Horizon Europe project REMIT (Reignite Multilateralism via Technology) (2023-2027), led by UM. For this project, she studies the moral underpinnings of the AI Act. In December 2024, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) awarded her a personal Aspasia grant for the project ‘Moral Monitoring’ (2025-2028), to examine the concept of technomoral change by studying smart monitoring in parenting of younger children and in caretaking of older parents. 

-Member of the Maastricht Young Academy

-UM theme coordinator for the SSH sector plan themes ‘Humane AI’ and ‘The Human Factor in New Technologies’

-Affiliate member of 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology

-Steering committee member of ETHICOMP (international academic organisation)

-Executive board member of INSEIT (international academic organisation)

-Member of the general meeting of LUNA vzw, the association of abortion centres in Flanders, Belgium

-Board member of Stichting Internationale Spinozaprijs that awards the Spinozalens every other year to an international thinker who deals with ethics and society

-Member and vice-chair of the Onafhankelijke Adviesraad Smartschool (Belgium)