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Mareike Smolka, visiting PhD student

New face at IMC

Mareike Smolka joins the IMC as a visiting PhD student during the month of August. She works in Science, Technology & Society Studies at Maastricht University (MUSTS), Netherlands, and is affiliated to the Center for Cultural Research Lübeck, Germany.

Her PhD research is an ethnography on conceptions and practices of ‘responsibility’ in contemplative science. She inserts herself as a participant in various sites: in a large-scale neuroscientific clinical trial, the Silver Santé Study, so she can engage with neuroscientists, study participants, meditation teachers, and other stakeholders; in the Mind & Life and Mindfulness research communities, more broadly, to explore evolutions and trends in contemplative science; and in a religious studies scholarly network to talk to advocates of different views on how religious studies should interact with the cognitive sciences. As an embedded scholar in the Silver Santé Study, she uses Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) to collaborate with the laboratory group so as to both study and contribute to responsibility practices.

If you are interested in having a chat, feel free to come by her office in 1483-327.