In July 2017, Daniela Schuh, will join the Ku Leuven Life Sciences & Societies Lab. Daniela was a Predoctoral Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology and Society from October 2013-May 2014. Her research interests concern national approaches of governing biotechnologies in Europe.While at the STS Program, Daniela worked on a Faraday Institute funded project entitled “Biology and the Law” in which she investigated the ontological settlement of the human embryo during the German reunification.

Daniela’s PhD-project sets out to investigate how legal authorities in France and Germany construct challenges to national conceptions of citizenship. At the center of her work lies the question how the practice of international surrogacy challenges culturally rooted ideas of parenthood while raising fundamental questions about the relationship between states and their citizens. Engaging with theories and sensitizing concepts from Science and Technology Studies and Critical Legal Studies, her work contextualizes the negotiation of citizenship within a history of scientific change and technological achievements.

Prior to doctoral studies, Daniela studied Sociology and Law and completed her Master’s Degree in Sociology with major focus on Science and Technology Studies. While at graduate school, Daniela worked as research assistant at the University of Vienna with the project “Open Places,” a platform of local authorities and communicators engaged in science. Daniela’s doctoral research is funded by a scholarship program of the University of Vienna and supervised by Ulrike Felt at Vienna’s department of Science and Technology Studies.