Biography
My ongoing research is about the governance of nuclear safety, controversies around the siting of nuclear power plants in urban areas, colonial connections in the nuclear industry, technopolitical visions on nuclear development, and maintenance in nuclear power plants.
I mobilise empirically grounded historical research to make contributions to theoretical discussions in STS as well as policy discussions. My research methodology combines a transnational framework and Digital Humanities approaches. With my broad language proficiency (8 languages), I mobilise archival documents and interviews from different national contexts.
I have also worked with various (nuclear) policymakers in Sweden, France, the US, and Belgium to introduce historical and societal perspectives into debates on nuclear safety and security. I also regularly contribute to public debates through debate pieces, podcasts, and blog posts.
Current project
I am a postdoctoral researcher at Tema Technology and Social Change at Linköping University. In 2026, I am also a Visiting Fellow at SPRU and the Sussex Energy Group, where I am working more closely on uncertainty in innovation and the role of nuclear power in the energy transition.
My research project "Ageing Atoms: Nuclear Maintenance Techniques in Sweden and the UK (1980-2026)" is funded by Formas. The project investigates more closely the uncertainties regarding ageing nuclear infrastructures, lifetime extensions of nuclear power plants, and material decay issues. Central to the study is the maintenance work that goes on in nuclear power plants and the people who do it. It will particularly focus on the techniques – types of knowledge that are not necessarily written down on how to use or repair a technology – that these workers possess.
Past projects
Before coming to Linköping, I was a Junior Postdoctoral Fellow at KU Leuven with the project ”Atoms from Abroad: A Transnational History of Nuclear Energy in Belgium (1953-1985).” The project studies Belgium’s nuclear energy system in the context of wider transnational connections between Belgian and foreign public actors, and particularly uses this case to study three interconnected themes: urban controversies over industrial siting, the roots of energy transitions in colonialism and extractivism, and the challenges faced by small states in governing nuclear technologies largely developed abroad.
I obtained my PhD at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm in 2024. In my PhD thesis, titled “Streams, Steams, and Steels: A Transnational History of Risk Regulation in Nuclear Power Plants (1850-1985),” I researched the history of nuclear safety regulation in the US, France, and Sweden, with a focus on water and steam technologies. My research was part of the ERC-funded NUCLEARWATERS project, led by Per Högselius, which had the ambition to rewrite the history of nuclear energy through the lens of water. He is currently writing a monograph based on this research.
Previously, I have also worked on the impact of mining safety debates on European integration, as well as on fire safety in Belgium. The latter was the topic of my MA thesis and resulted in a bestselling book in 2017 on the ”Á l’Innovation" department store fire.
Besides KU Leuven and KTH, I have also worked at Virginia Tech and Uppsala University.
My articles are published in Nuclear Technology, the European Review of History, Water History, Technikgeschichte, Enterprises et Histoire, and Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, among others. An edited volume I co-edited with Per Högselius on the “nuclear-water nexus” appeared with MIT Press in 2025.
