Tom Barbereau

I am a scientist specialist at the Dutch Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and research fellow at the Institute for Information Law (IViR). I am born in Karlsruhe, Germany and was raised in a bilingual household (French, German). Since 2022, I live in the centre of Amsterdam.

Research

By trianing and passion, I am a critical technologist. I ask the uncomfortable questions, doubt the deterministic narratives presented, and challenge the premises upon which a technological problem-solution rests. Though a specialist in the `digital’ realm, I am still agnostic towards which actually technology in particular I work on.

My strength lies in cross-disciplinary collaboration, to find logical relations between topics, and to untangle socio-technological controversies. I collaborate with lawyers, mathematicians, and computer scientists, and choose outlets that match the critical nature of my work. Among ohters, I published in: Technology in Society, Philosophy & Technology, Government Information Quarterly, Computer Law and Security Review, and Academy for Computing Machinery

You can also find my work in international conferences and edited books. My most up-to-date portfolio is on GoogleScholar.

In the style of Jathan Sadowski, I try to write up thoughts on how I think about the politics and power of technology. Like for Jathan, I believe it of value given that I am frequently asked why I study technology in the first place and, more provocatively, what my contribution might even be as a `non-technical’, social scientist. You can read these thoughts of mine here.

Education

I earned my PhD in Information Systems Management from the University of Luxembourg (Thesis: “Politics, Power, and Information Systems”) as part of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT). I hold an MSc in Science & Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh (Thesis: “Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Convoluted Narratives of Decentralisation”) and a BA in Liberal Arts & Sciences from the University of Groningen (Thesis: “Challenging Habermasian Deliberation on Facebook”).

Miscellaneous

I have had the opportunity to write for press and contribute to printed magazines reflecting some of my personal interests. I have written for the design and typography magazine Slanted Issues #34 - Europe, #36 - Coexist, and #37 - Artificial intelligence as well as for the lifestyle magazine Jocks & Nerds.

Colophon

The site is adpated and built from the Collaborative-Libraries project. The setup connects Zotero to a real-time website using GitHub. In a nutshell, if I add or edit items in the former and the latter gets refreshed.

The content on this website is copyrighted. Feel free to ask if you want to reuse any content beyond the bounds of fair use.