Alexander Peine Open University in The Netherlands
Alexander Peine is a Full Professor of Culture, Innovation and Communication at the Open University in The Netherlands. His research takes place at the cross-section of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Social Gerontology. He is interested in exploring and theorizing the role of digital infrastructures – such as smartphones, tablets, PCs, apps, fitness trackers, pedometers, “brain games”, digital monitoring systems, digital health, and other devices – and their development in relation to ageing and later life. The main aim of his research is to overcome the divide between social analyses of aging, on the one hand, and engineering and design-based approaches, on the other, and obtain an empirically grounded theoretical understanding of later life in digitizing societies. Before joining the Open University, Alexander was and Associate Professor at Utrecht University, the laureate of a prestigious Max Weber post-doctoral fellowship at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, and a Principal Investigator at Berlin University of Technology.