I am a sociologist of science and technology, or STSer for those familiar with science and technology studies (STS).

As of the summer of 2013 my current work will focus on funding policies for orphan drugs for rare diseases in Canada (http://rare-diseases.ca/).

Other on-going interest relate to synthetic biology (http://sybhel.org/ ),  bio-banking ( http://www.emgo.nl/team/1361/conordouglas/projects/),  and bio-objects (http://www.univie.ac.at/bio-objects/ )

While having worked in the Netherlands, I am a Canadian who has lived in the UK (where I did my PhD at the University of York with Andrew Webster); Taiwan, Italy, and the Netherlands previous to this current stint (I did my MSc in STS with the late Olga Amsterdam and Annemiek Nelis at the UvA).

I am particularly interested in the sociology of genetic sciences, and medically related ones in particular. I have conducted social science research on pharmacogenetics, biobanking, pathogenomics, bioinformatics, metagenomics (or ecogenomics), synthetic biology.  While the sciences I study may vary, my analytical focus tends to be on ‘users’ and their role in the technological development process.

Outside of academia(.edu) I am also a bit of a basketball fanatic (mostly playing, but also spectator), I love to sail (not race), travel, and spend time with my family and friends (preferably over good food that I have cooked and some wine that they have brought).