New Professor of Ethics of Technology at ITAS

Since March 2015, Rafaela Hillerbrand has been researching and teaching at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis of KIT. The physicist and philosopher of science has moved from TU Delft to Karlsruhe.
New at ITAS: Philosopher of science and technology Rafaela Hillerbrand (photo: Peter Winandy)

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has appointed Rafaela Hillerbrand to ITAS as a new professor for philosophy of science and engineering with a focus on the assessment of complex forms of knowledge. Hillerbrand holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a PhD in philosophy. Before joining KIT, she worked as an associate professor at Delft University of Technology, and until 2012 was head of the research group "eet – ethics for energy technology" at RWTH Aachen University. Previously, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Rafaela Hillerbrand was member and chairperson of the Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Her research focusses on the philosophy of applied science, especially of engineering sciences and applied ethics, with a particular focus on technological and environmental ethics. Furthermore, she is engaged, among others, in dealing with risks and uncertainties. In 2011, Rafaela Hillerbrand was a member of the Advisory Board of the Ethics Commission for Safe Energy Supply chaired by Klaus Töpfer, which was set up by the German national government in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

At ITAS, Rafaela Hillerbrand’s research concentrates on the quality criteria of applied research in the field of engineering modeling, from abstract models of technology assessment to concrete scale models in fluid mechanics. (12.05.2015)

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