Keynote: tba
Prof. dr. ir. Karen Maex, Rector Magnificus, UvA
Prof. Karen Maex has been appointed Rector Magnificus of the University of Amsterdam as from 1 June 2016.
Education
Karen Maex (b. 1959) is a native of Belgium, where she earned her doctorandus degree in Civil Engineering with a specialisation in microelectronics in 1982. She did her doctoral work as a research assistant at KU Leuven, taking her doctorate in 1987.
Previous positions
In 1989 Maex was appointed university lecturer at KU Leuven, and subsequently as senior university lecturer in 1998, where for many years she taught the Master’s course in Material Physics for Nanoelectronics and shared responsibility for the Bachelor’s course in Semiconductor Physics. From 1999 until 2005 she was also affiliated with the University of Pavia, in Italy, as a guest lecturer in the European Master’s in Material Science. In 2001 Maex was appointed to a professorship at the KU and in 2002 became programme director of its international Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme in Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, which was set up under her initiative. In 2003 she was promoted to full professor.
After obtaining her doctorate in 1987, Karen Maex took an appointment as research director of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and conducted groundbreaking research into the use of nanotechnology in electronics at the IMEC (Interuniversity Micro-Electronics Centre). From 1996 she held various positions at the IMEC, including as the programme director of different divisions. In 2002 she became a member of KU Leuven’s Research Council. As author and co-author of more than 250 publications, Maex has been a significant contributor to work at KU Leuven on material properties in micro and nano structures, in which she has also supervised (and co-supervised) numerous doctoral researchers.
Maex has held the position of IMEC Fellow and strategic research adviser since 2001. From 2005 until 2013 she was KU Leuven’s first female vice-rector, appointed to the Science & Technology group, with responsibility for multiple faculties, departments and research centres, as well as for diversity policy. In addition, Maex has been a member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) since 2008, where she focuses on international viewpoints on education and research. From 2009 until 2013 she was also a member of the Board of Directors of the IMEC.
Maex was dean of the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Science and dean of VU University Amsterdam’s faculties of Sciences and Earth & Life Sciences from 1 January 2014 to 31 May 2016.
dr. Machiel Keestra (dagvoorzitter)
Machiel Keestra is assistant professor (UD) with tenure at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He teaches in the Beta-Gamma (Natural & Social Sciences) Bachelor program, Interdisciplinary Honours program, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Master program, and other interdisciplinary courses. His research interests are a.o. tragedy, history of philosophy, philosophy of action and the philosophy of cognitive neuroscience. His PhD thesis “Sculpting the Space of Actions. Explaining Human Action by Integrating Intentions and Mechanisms” covers the overlap between philosophy of science, cognitive neuroscience, hermeneutics and ethics and presents a novel framework for the interdisciplinary explanation and understanding of human action.
He was co-convener of the 2011 inaugural seminar of the International Network for Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity and has been the convener of INIT’s Steering group ever since. He is elected board member of the US based Association for Interdisciplinary (formerly: Integrative) Studies since Fall 2010 and is AIS’s President since Fall 2014.
dr. Iris van der tuin (dagvoorzitter)
Iris van der Tuin is Associate Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University, the Netherlands (Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies). She chairs the H2020 COST Action New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on ‘How Matter Comes to Matter’ (2014-18). Her work on feminist new materialism has appeared in (inter) national journals like among others Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Australian Feminist Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, and Women’s Studies International Forum. Iris is editor of the book series New Materialisms of Edinburgh University Press with Rosi Braidotti and associate editor in chief of the Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Gender. These series of handbooks should systematize, and make the interdisciplinary approach, accessible to all bachelor students worldwide.