Gemma Cirac-Claveras
Principal Investigator
Gemma Cirac-Claveras is an Associate Professor at the Institut d’Història de la Ciència of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
She obtained her PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, which complemented her graduate education in Physics (Universitat de Barcelona). Since then, she has worked at the Centre Alexandre Koyré, the Institut Mines Télécom, the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Université Paris Est, the Space History Department of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Gemma’s work investigates the history of remote-sensing satellite technology and its implications for society, environment, and culture. She has published in Technology and Culture, Science as Culture and Space Policy, among others, and is the recipient of the ICOHTEC Maurice Daumas Prize (2022 and 2015), the ESA History Prize (2017) and the NASA/HSS award (2015).
Grigoris Panoutsopoulos
Historian of science – postdoctoral researcher
Grigoris Panoutsopoulos is a post-doctoral researcher working at the history of European satellite systems and the associated climate data.
He holds a B.Sc. in Physics, a M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and a Ph.D. in the History of Science from the University of Athens. His doctoral dissertation, titled “Planning CERN’s Large Hadron Collider: An Entanglement of Physics, Technology, and Diplomacy”, showcases an in-depth understanding of the intricate interplay between Big Science infrastructures, industry, and politics. Grigoris possesses a broad range of research interests, including science diplomacy, the material culture of science, the history of Big Science, the relationship between European integration and scientific networks, climate and weather data, and the history of European satellite systems.
He previously participated in the research project “The Perils of Prediction in the Physical Sciences: Historical and Epistemological Perspectives”, led by Theodore Arabatzis and funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), and he served as a research fellow at the Vossius Center at the University of Amsterdam. Since September 2023, he has co-organized the Seminar Series of the ECR STAND Commission.
Grigoris has received support from various fellowships and grants, enabling him to present at international conferences and publish articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Additionally, he has co-authored books in both Greek and English, including «Borders, Bodies, and Narratives of Crisis in Europe» (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
Santiago Gorostiza
Environmental historian – postdoctoral researcher
Santiago Gorostiza is an environmental historian working at the intersection of political ecology and the history of science.
The Spanish Civil War and postwar have been the key focus of his research, with special attention to anarchist collectivisations of water and land, on the one hand, and the autarkic projects of the Franco dictatorship, on the other. He continues investigating the fortification of the Pyrenean border and guerrilla warfare in postwar Spain.
The production of knowledge about climate and the environment is a more recent research interest. Santiago has studied responses to drought during the 17th century, including the writing of a manuscript on urban water supply for the city of Barcelona, known as Llibre de les Fonts (1650). Other examples include scientific and political debates about river sediment transport since the 19th century or controversies about the relation between potash mining and river salinisation from the 1920s to the present day.
Santiago completed his PhD at the Centro de Estudos Sociais of the Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal) as a Marie Curie ITN fellow. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and at the Centre for History at Sciences Po (Paris), where he was part of the Shifting Shores project and remains an affiliated researcher.
Hèctor Isern
PhD candidate
Hèctor Isern is a student of the PhD programme of the Institute of History of Science (iHC-UAB) .
His research revolves around the negotiations on the production, exchange and preservation of data generated by Earth observation satellites in the period 1980-2000. The aim is to establish an account of how these data were appropriated by different international organisations in the climate debates, and to define exactly what data were used. The research focuses on the actors, activities and claims linked to data centres, databases, international organisations, conferences, networks, regulatory agencies, data sharing agreements, infrastructures, or research programmes through which the production, circulation and use of satellite data were mobilised on an international scale and what conception of climate resulted. In addition, the research also aims to understand which actors were excluded from these negotiations and for what reasons, and which actors capitalised on the negotiating power.
Hence the main objective is to investigate the historical process that has governed the collection, calibration, storage and accumulation of Earth observation satellite data for the subsequent production of «products» and «applications» useful for the description and definition of the global climate (databases, mathematical meteorological and climate models or maps), paying special attention to the diplomatic negotiations that have defined the knowledge regime (governance) associated with these data, resulting from the friction involved in obtaining them, in economic and political terms.
Before starting his PhD, Hèctor studied a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Sciences (UB) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy (UB). Subsequently, he took a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering (UPC) and a Master’s degree in History of Science (UAB). His interests include history of Earth observation satellites, science and diplomacy, history of data, history of technology and environmental history.
Andrea Álvarez
PhD Candidate
Andrea Álvarez is a student of the PhD programme of the Institute of History of Science (iHC-UAB)”.
Her research is devoted to the study of the set of materialities, knowledge, practices and actors involved in the production, analysis, circulation and use of satellite Earth monitoring data during the 1980s and 1990s. Taking as a case study a project led by the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya and dedicated to the monitoring of territories in South America, Andrea seeks to investigate the relationships of the various groups involved with satellite technology and data to explore the construction of knowledge, actions, expertise and power dynamics that they articulated, as well as their environmental, social and political implications.
Before becoming a member of CLIMASAT project Andrea studied a master’s degree in History of Science and a bachelor’s degree in Physics, both at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her interests include the history of technology in interrelation with environmental history, the history of ecological thought, the expertises and resistances in the construction of science and technology and the relation between science and gender