J.A. (Anne) Beaulieu, Prof

Anne Beaulieu holds the Aletta Jacobs chair of Knowledge Infrastructures and is Director of the Data Research Centre at Campus Fryslan, University of Groningen. She works on creating knowledge infrastructures for liveable futures and leads the major Energy, Environment, and Climate (formerly called Responsible Planet) in the programme Global Responsibility and Leadership. She also develope the minor Data Wise, together with Gert Stulp. She writes and teaches about the technological and societal aspects of climate change and biodiversity infrastructures.

Beaulieu's interest in data in context and her drive to implement more responsible approaches to data fed the development of the minor Data Wise (since Sept 2019). She coordinated the PhD training in STS for WTMC (Dutch National Research School in Science and Technology Studies) together with Bernike Pasveer and Andreas Weber (2018-2022). She co-founded the Groningen Energy Summer School for PhDs and acted as one of its scientific directors for 6 years. She was a member of the Board of Data Fryslân and of the editorial board of APRIA, ARTEZ Platform for Research Interventions of the Arts (2020-23). She served on the board of Studium General Groningen (2017-2023) and on the NIAS-Lorentz Advisory Board (2017-2022).

More information can be found on the website annebeaulieu.org

Anne Beaulieu has published widely in STS and social science journals and in a number of edited collections. Some of her key contributions have been translated and/or reprinted in major reference works. She is co-author Data and Society: A Critical Introduction (Sage) and co-editor of Smart Grids From a Global Perspective (Springer) and of Virtual Knowledge (MIT Press) and has been guest editor of special issues for the following journals: Theory and Psychology, Social Epistemology, Journal of Computer Mediated Interaction and Forum Qualitative Research.  

A dominant theme in Beaulieu’s work is the importance of images and interfaces for the creation and circulation of knowledge. Past research projects focused on data-sharing (expert panel for OECD), on knowledge networks and big data, and on visualisation and visual knowledge. Beaulieu has also done extensive work in the field of digital humanities, on new (ethnographic) research methods and on ethics in e-research. Between 2015 and 2018, she was initiator and programme manager of the project Energysense, a large-scale longitudinal study of energy with 10 000 households in the Northern Netherlands.