Academical status

10/2016 – 10/2019 Master's Degree in History with focus on Environmental Urban Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt

10/2011 – 05/2016 Joint Bachelor Study History and Philosophy, Technical University of Darmstadt

Work experience

04/2016 – 08/2016

Student Assistant – Collaboration on Prof. Dr. Mikael Hårds project “Simultaneity & Locality: A global History of Technology” Institute for History, Technical University of Darmstadt

10/2015 – 10/2016

Student assistant at the Library of Humanities and History at the Technical University of Darmstadt

05/ 2013 – 08/2016

Student Assistant, Institute for History: History of Technology for Dr. phil. Catarina Caetano da Rosa in the context of her habilitation project, Technical University of Darmstadt

Dossier „Alter Ort, Neu-Isenburg“, Kooperationsprojekt der Kultur Region Frankfurt Rhein-Main und der TU Darmstadt zum Thema „Orte der Meinungsfreiheit“

(online here)

Awards

2016

Deutschlandstipendium • Goethe Universität Frankfurt

2015

Deutschlandstipendium • TU Darmstadt

Research interests

• History of technology
• Infrastructure history
• History of the Global South
• Critical infrastructures
• Urban development
• Identity History

Repairing Critical Infrastructure Systems – Repair, Maintenance and Innovation of Lisbon's Public Transport System in the Second Half of the 20th Century

During the 20th century, Lisbon grew in size and population. Portugal's neutrality during the Second World War and political focus on the country's economic growth led to a growing middle class between 1940 and 1960, concentrated mainly in the capital. The flow of new residents as well as commuters travelling daily from the surrounding areas to work in the capital's industries led to an increased load on the transport network and thus to major circulation problems for the city. The trams were also no longer able to transport the quantity of passengers, so many Lisboners resorted to the car. This manifested itself, for example, in the repetitive evening traffic jams between 6pm and 10pm that dominate the lives of citizens.

This increasing congestion on the roads and in public transport led to the creation of the Metropolitano project – the metro. With the development of innovation projects like the Metropolitano, the government consciously and actively tried to tackle the problems of circulation in the capital without ignoring the importance of the existing infrastructure, such as the trams. Thus, parallel to the development of the Metropolitano, the strategy to maintain the tramway was also pursued: Even if the tram was no longer sufficient to transport the growing number of users, its failure or neglect meant a deeper circulation problem for the city.

Based on this development in Lisbon, the dissertation project deals with the question of the role of repair of critical infrastructure systems in the urban context using the example of the transport system in Lisbon. For this purpose, the development of local public transport – especially the tram and metro – its impact on the circulation problems of the Portuguese capital and the socio-technical transformation of Lisbon's transport system will be examined. The research project focuses on the concept of repair, with an emphasis on repairing, maintaining and innovating of critical infrastructure systems.