Meet our new colleagues Sabine and Amir

We have two recent additions to the INTRANSIT team. Amir Mirzadeh Phirouzabadi and Sabine de Graaff.

Sabine de GraaffWoman in a field of dandelions

Sabine has an interdisciplinary background in Environmental Social Science (BSc, Utrecht University) and Environmental Governance (MSc, Leiden University). Here she studied a diverse range of topics, including energy transition and climate adaptation, governance of biodiversity and ecosystems, circular economy and water governance. She particularly enjoyed learning about the (complexity of the) governance processes of sustainability challenges.

Her project will broadly focus on the policy and governance processes related to the directionality of innovation policy in the context of sustainability transitions. While looking at the role of innovation policy specifically, she will also explore the more broad relations between long term policy processes and systems change, as this should improve our understanding of transition dynamics and social change. Sabine will further explore processes of how directionality is formed in different policy subsystems - that is, how different development paths towards long-term policy goals related to sustainability are negotiated, deliberated and coordinated upon. In this context she will pay specific attention to power relations between actors, participation and inclusion, and political dimensions.

If these topics sound interesting to you, or you want to exchange ideas, Sabine encourages you to contact her. For contact details see Sabine's INTRANSIT research profile.

Amir Mirzadeh PhirouzabadiSmiling man with glasses

Amir joins the TIK Centre as a postdoctoral fellow. Here is part of INTRANSIT as well as the OFLLEX project. His project will investigate the potential, barriers, and benefits of integrating renewable energies into oil and gas platforms using offshore wind power together with energy storage technologies and flexibility in energy usage. The main question is, what the main system challenges are – both technical and social, including policy and regulation, routines, standards, decision structures around investments, and the knowledge base – connected to the implementation of wind power as an energy source in oil and gas production?

Amir has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Yazd University, Yazd, Iran (2005-2009) and a master’s degree in Management of Innovation & Technology from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran (2009-2012). He obtained his PhD in Management in 2021 at the University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia. In his PhD dissertation, he conceptualised innovation and industrial change processes, particularly sociotechnical interactions (the interaction of technology, actor strategies, policy, politics, society, and culture) and modelled and simulated such interactions for vehicle powertrain systems in a System Dynamics modelling environment.

For more about Amir's project, background, and an overview of his recent publications, check out his INTRANSIT research profile.

 

Published July 5, 2022 1:14 PM - Last modified Mar. 1, 2024 1:41 PM