FASoS alumna Lea Beiermann shortlisted for Thesis Award
Lea Beiermann is one of the three remaining candidates for the 2019 Gewina-Descartes-Huygens Thesis Award. This prize is given triannually to the best MA thesis in the History of Science and Universities written in the Netherlands and Belgium. A four-member jury made the selection out of 18 submissions. The award will be handed to the winner on 21 June at the Gewina Woudschoten Conference.
In the mid-nineteenth century, numerous microscopy societies and journals were launched, catering to a diverse community of amateur and professional scientists, physicians, and engineers. In her thesis, Beiermann studies the formation of a microscopy community in the pages of London’s periodical press and shows that subgroups within the community aligned with various epistemic systems – ways of knowing and making – that either lost or gained importance. Science professionalisation is thus conceptualised as a change in prominent epistemic programs. As present-day citizen science projects again destabilise categories of amateurism and professionalism, this thesis allows us to contrast current developments with earlier configurations of the amateur/professional dichotomy.
Beiermann wrote her thesis, entitled: ‘Microscopical Science”: Building an Instrumental Community in London’s Periodical Press, 1860-1880’ to complete the Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology programme (RMSc) at Maastricht University. She graduated in Juni 2017.
Also read
-
We are pleased to announce the 11 new education innovation projects that have received an EDLAB grant for 2025!
-
Courts use digital tools more and more often in criminal proceedings. Defendants ‘attend’ their trial online via a video connection. This sparked Christina Peristeridou’s curiosity: how can effective participation be achieved in a virtual setting?
-
Her primary school teacher was convinced she would end up saving the whales with Greenpeace. Even as a child, Maastricht University alum Susanne Schnabel couldn’t stand injustice. If a classmate was bullied, she had to intervene. It was this trait, combined with her “big mouth,” that led her to the legal profession. For the last 12 years, Schnabel has worked at Tripels Advocaten in Maastricht. “I don’t go around bragging that I’m a lawyer. This is just my job.”
