Tazuko van Berkel and Noel de Miranda join Young Academy
Leiden researchers Tazuko van Berkel (Greek and Latin Language and Culture) and Noel de Miranda (Tumour Immunology, LUMC) will join the KNAW’s Young Academy next year. They will be inducted on 22 March 2021.
The Young Academy consits of researchers who work in a variety of disciplines, have been selected for their scientific achievements and received their doctorates less than ten years ago. During their five-year membership, they will champion projects focusing on science policy, interdisciplinarity, science and society, and internationalisation.
Tazuko van Berkel
Tazuko van Berkel studies how the ancient Greeks saw themselves, human nature and the world. She is currently heading a research project on the history of economic thinking in Greek antiquity: What conceptualisations of the body, freedom, rationality, individuality and competition are presupposed? And is economic knowledge descriptive or prescriptive, generalisable or contextual, numerical or narrative?
As a member of The Young Academy, she plans to investigate how humanities scholars can engage in productive dialogue with the general public. She would also like to work with the Society of Arts and other parties on setting up a programme of dialogue and artistic intervention in which school pupils learn to reflect on consumer behaviour and debt issues.
Noel de Miranda
Noel de Miranda seeks to understand how a patient’s immune system recognises cancer cells, how cancer cells escape such recognition, and how our knowledge of this behaviour can be used to develop effective immunotherapies.
As a member of The Young Academy, he would like to support the development of a sustainable and encouraging academic environment for scientists and researchers that is also inclusive and accessible to the general public.
Alongside Van Berkel and De Miranda a further eight researchers will be joining the Young Academy.