Current PhD projects
At the moment, FASoS hosts around 65 PhD candidates. Some of these are part of a larger funded project while others carry out their own projects. Below you can find an overview of the large funded PhD projects - and the accompanying candidates within these projects - and individual PhD candidates.
NanoBubbles: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?
Prof. Cyrus Mody received a Synergy Grant in 2020 for his project NanoBubbleS: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?. The project investigates how, when and why science fails to correct itself.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisory |
|---|---|---|
| Candida Sánchez Burmester | Tracing claims in nanobiology: scientific practices and interactions at conferences and laboratories | Prof. Cyrus Mody |
NanoBubbles website
A coalition of hawks and doves? Explaining military receptiveness to civil society calls for transparency around the use of force
The Hawks and Doves project examines military receptiveness to NGO calls for transparency in Western European countries. It aims to understand the conditions under which military officials are willing to cooperate with civil society to improve transparency around the use of military force and its consequences.
The project is lead by Dr. Yf Reykers and Dr. Francesca Colli.
The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation’s special programme on Security, Society and the State.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Daphné Charotte | A coalition of hawks and doves? Explaining military receptiveness to civil society calls for transparency around the use of force | Dr. Giselle Bosse |
Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world
Dr. Lauren Wagner received a NWO Aspasia Grant for the project Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world. Care matters explores how the labour of caring for a home is changing along with increasingly mobile and partial practices of dwelling.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Joma Ronden | Care matters but who cares: The case of remittance houses in Ghana |
Care matters website
Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism, and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity
Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism, and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity is a five year research project led by Prof. Cyrus Mody.
This Vici project, funded by NWO, uses the case of oil in the 1970s to understand why companies adopt or reject alternative energy and conservation, and uses that understanding to facilitate an energy transition.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Michiel Bron | The involvement of oil companies in the development of nuclear energy in the age of scarcity, focussing on the 1970s | Prof. Cyrus Mody |
| Jelena Stankovic | Understanding the complex relationship of oil firms and solar; internal and external drivers | Prof. Cyrus Mody |
Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century
Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century is a five-year research project led by Prof. Raf de Bont.
The project – sponsored by an NWO Vici grant – studies changing human-nature relations by focusing on human involvement with ‘wild’ animals that move (or are being moved) over great distances.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Vincent Bijman | Invasive species. The science, management and representation of animal introductions in the context of the 20th century | Prof. Raf de Bont |
| Monica Vasile | Reintroducing endangered species: human-animal histories in the 20th century | Prof. Raf de Bont |
Moving Animals website
PURE3D
PURE3D is a three-year project funded by the PDI-SSH (Platform Digitale Infrastructuur–Social Sciences and Humanities) with a mission to advance the virtual research environment through the development of an access infrastructure for viewing interactive Digital Heritage and Digital Humanities 3D content online. It is led by Prof. Susan Schreibman and Dr. Costas Papadopoulos.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Kelly Gillikin-Schoueri | 3D Web Infrastructures and the Future of Sustainable 3D Scholarly Research | Prof. Susan Schreibman |
PURE3D website
Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab)
Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab) is a four-year research project led by Prof. John Parkinson and colleagues at the University of Göttingen.
With Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab), we develop a transformative online testing environment that allows us to explain the nature, causes, and consequences of citizens’ perceptions in deliberative public, online dialogue across languages.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Maud Oostindie | Escalation and de-escalation in online deliberation | Prof. John Parkinson |
DeLab website
The Critical Visitor: Intersectional Approaches for Rethinking & Retooling Accessibility and Inclusivity in Heritage Spaces
The Critical Visitor: Intersectional Approaches for Rethinking & Retooling Accessibility and Inclusivity in Heritage Spaces is a five-year project led by Dr. Eliza Steinbock.
The aim of the project is to enable cultural institutions to implement daily working practices (selection, collection, preservation, display, interaction) that alleviate structures of exclusion.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Liang-Kai Yu | Queering the Museum: Contemporary Artists and Curators as Critical Visitors and Their Creative Interventions | Dr. Eliza Steinbock |
| Noah Littel | Founding an Inclusive Space: Legacies of Alternative Archiving Practices in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom | Dr. Eliza Steinbock |
Image created by Noah Littel
LIMES: The Hardening and Softening of Borders
LIMES, the Latin word for border, is a doctoral programme for 13 talented PhD candidates in the domain of the humanities and social sciences, centred on the theme of ‘The Hardening and Softening of Borders: Europe in a Globalising World’. It has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (grant agreement No 847596).
LIMES is led by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS), thereby working closely with University College Maastricht (UCM), the School of Business and Economics (SBE), and the Faculty of Law (FL). 6 out of 13 PhD candidates are employed by FASoS.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| From Boarders to Borders: Constructing Women's Roles in Post-Industrial Mining Communities in the German Ruhr Area and the Former Mining Regions of Dutch Limburg | Prof. Leonie Cornips | |
| Maha Naami | Youth Mobilities of Unaccompanied Minors in Border Regions | Prof. Valentina Mazzucato |
| Judith van Puyvelde |
The ‘Atelier Glasschilderkunst F. Nicolas en Zonen’ in Roermond (NL) (1855-1968) and the Revival of Stained-Glass Production in Western Europe in the 19th and 20th Century |
Dr. Nico Randeraad |
| Marie Rickert |
Language socialisation in day-cares at the German-Dutch border: Multi- and/or monolingual language practices |
Prof. Leonie Cornips |
| Cecilia Schenetti |
Soft EU borders in Africa. How migration campaigns and social media affect young Senegalese men’s migratrion aspirations and sense of social justice. |
Prof. Valentina Mazzucato |
| Akudo McGee | Hardening and Softening of Borders in European Integration Enlargement | Prof. Mathieu Segers |
LIMES website
Making Clinical Sense
Making Clinical Sense describes, analyses, rethinks and redesigns the material conditions of learning sensory, bodily skills. By attending to the everyday material practices of training doctors (such as the use of physical models, blackboard drawing, making and watching video, searching online images and peer-to-peer learning) across place and over time, the research team offers unique insights into how the way people learn connects with what they learn. Making Clinical Sense has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 678390).
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Andrea Wojcik |
The co-production of bodies and pedagogical technologies in medical education. An ethnography of skills training at a Ghanaian medical school |
Prof. Harro van Lente |
| Rachel Allison |
Crafting bodies: An anthropological exploration of the entanglement of technology and the senses in 21st century medical education |
Prof. Sally Wyatt |
Making Clinical Sense website
The Scientific Conference: A Social, Cultural, and Political History
The Scientific Conference: A Social, Cultural, and Political History is a three-year research project funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) led by Dr. Geert Somsen.
| PhD candidate | Project | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Georgiana Kotsou | Convention Conventions. Routines and Rituals in International Scientific Conferences, past and present | Prof. Cyrus Mody |
Individual research projects
Below you can find a list of PhD candidates that conduct their projects individually, outside a larger project.
| PhD candidate
|
Project |
Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Vasiliki Belia | Redrawing feminism: graphic narrative engagements with the feminist past | Prof. Emilie Sitzia |
| Xing Fang | The United Nations Cybersecurity Governance. Towards Fair Global Rules? | Prof. Thomas Conzelmann |
| Angus Foster | The Europe problem – collective memory of Europe in Britain’s national referendums | Prof. Mathieu Segers |
|
Audience Participation in Performance-based Art |
Prof. Renee van de Vall | |
| Antye Guenther | Unfolding 3D-Rendered Neuroimaginaries — A Trans*Feminist Artistic Investigation | Prof. Harro van Lente |
| Yan Jia |
Beyond Clothing: Style, Identities and Practices |
Prof. Leonie Cornips |
| Hanna de Korte | The Landscapes of Colonial Healthcare in Congo. An Environmental History of Medicine and Disease (1900-1960) | Prof. Raf de Bont |
| Jiaqi Liang | A Study of the Impact of Dark Heritage Sites on the Well-being of Local Communities: A Transnational Research with Dark Heritage Sites as Case Studies | |
| Dirk van de Leemput | Precarity in the social-material networks of time-based media works of art | Prof. Harro van Lente |
| Tsai-ying Lu | Reassembling Renewables from the Margin: Taiwan’s Experience of Offshore Wind Farms in the Energy Transition. The technology and knowledge transfer of offshore wind energy in the peripheral-central paradigm regarding Taiwan's distinctive position in global networks. | |
| Afra de Mars | A Mining Landscape without Borders. The Domaniale Mijn (Kerkrade) and its Surrounding Environment and Communities, ca. 1700 – present | Prof. Nico Randeraad |
| Niklas Mayer | Development Cooperation and Climate Change-Related Migration: The EU-Approach in the Horn of Africa | Dr. Giselle Bosse |
| Artemis Rüstau | Private Collections as Care-takers | Prof. Renee van de Vall |
| Eline Schmeets | The European integration process, there where it ‘hits the ground’, and theories, policies, subsidies, and good intentions, meet with the lived reality of the everyday | Prof. Mathieu Segers |
| Félix Streicher | The Forgotten Occupation: Politics, Everyday Life and Gender in the Luxembourgish Occupation Zone in Germany (1945-55) | Prof. Mathieu Segers |
| Karlien Strijbosch | Challenging masculinities: The institution of marriage for young Senegalese migrant men under conditions of involuntary return to Senegal | Prof. Valentina Mazzucato |
| Joey Tang |
Gender Inequality and Big Data: Measuring Gender Inequality in the Workplace using Register and Big Open Data and its Effect on Corporate Financial Performance and Employees’ Personal Well-Being |
Hans Schmeets |
| Luca Vanello | Caring with matter: Towards new artistic forms of togetherness | Prof. Aagje Swinnen |
| Yiming Wang | Fandom and Participatory Censorship: Boys’ Love Fiction and Globalised Fan activities across The Great Firewall of China | Prof. Emilie Sitzia |
| Yabo Wu | The firm as a development actor: the case of Chinese businesses | Dr. Adam Dixon |
| Manling Yang |
A comparative study of the EU’s and China’s development assistance to Africa, especially how their assistance policies differ associated with their domestic development |
Prof. Thomas Christiansen |
Part-time PhD candidates in European Studies, campus Brussels
At our Brussels campus, you can pursue a PhD alongside your work. Below you can find a list of names of people who participate in this scheme, and their research projects.
|
PhD candidate |
Project |
Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
|
Albi Alla |
The privatisation of diplomacy: The effectiveness of lobbying firms in the making of EU foreign policy |
Prof. Sophie Vanhoonacker |
|
Aniek Berendsen-Marissink |
Reweighing the Re-balance. The Effect of External Political Discourse on European Defence Policy Development: the American Re-balance |
Prof. Sophie Vanhoonacker |
|
Mike Bostan |
Electricity pricing in Europe and the influence of state policies |
Prof. Thomas Christiansen |
| Samuele Crosetti | Bank resolution regimes and financial stability: recent evolution, public actors and future challenges | Prof. Esther Versluis |
| Błażej Duber | Loosing but winning? National opposition parties in the European Parliament and their influence over the European Parliament’s policy-making | Dr. Christine Arnold |
| Ekaterina Georgieva |
The recurrent disputes in the area of the external competence of the European Union through the lenses of the new intergovernmentalism |
Prof. Sophie Vanhoonacker |
| Tomasz Jerzyniak | Energy Power Europe. Can the EU lead the global clean energy transition? | Dr. Anna Herranz Surrallés |
|
Ewa Mahr |
Contestation of EU civilian missions by local actors: The case of the Western Balkans |
Prof. Sophie Vanhoonacker |
| Ann-Kristin Matthé | Internationalisation Strategies in higher education – perceptions and practices. Examining how higher education institutions conceptualise internationalisation and which factors influence the implementation of internationalisation strategies in Germany and the Netherlands | Dr. Patrick Bijsmans |
|
Anastasia Mitronatsiou |
The European Parliament"s evolving role in EU external relations Formal and informal tools used as lever to increase its powers |
Prof. Sophie Vanhoonacker |
| Kian Navid | UCITS Directive and AIFMD - an unlevel playing field? An examination of the consistency and coherence of the EU Single Rulebook with respect to Investment Management Regulation | Prof. Esther Versluis |
| Susanne Reither |
EU mission-oriented policies for the transition to sustainable development and the nexus between public investment and private sustainable finance |
Dr. Aneta Spendzharova |
| Teresa Vázquez López | Winning from crises? An examination of the rise of the European Commission as a political entrepreneur and its dialogue with the pharmaceutical industry during the last two health crises | Prof. Esther Versluis |
| Daniel Wennick | Paradigm shifts in EU's climate policy 2005-2018 – a comparative historical institutional analysis of phase 1-4 of the EU ETS | Prof. Thomas Christiansen |
- EMBRACing changE - Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood
- NanoBubbles: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?
- A coalition of hawks and doves? Explaining military receptiveness to civil society calls for transparency around the use of force
- Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world
- Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism, and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity
- Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century
- PURE3D
- Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab)
- The Critical Visitor: Intersectional Approaches for Rethinking & Retooling Accessibility and Inclusivity in Heritage Spaces
- LIMES: The Hardening and Softening of Borders
- Making Clinical Sense
- The Scientific Conference: A Social, Cultural, and Political History
- Individual research projects
- Part-time PhD candidates in European Studies, campus Brussels