On April 28, 2011 Professor Rosalind Williams received an honorary doctorate from the Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands) for her outstanding achievements as a cultural historian of technology. Williams received the doctorate during the celebration of the fifty fifth Dies Natalis of the university. Honorary promoter Johan Schot presented the laudation for Williams, of which you find an excerpt here:

“As a cultural historian of technology Rosalind Williams examines the emergence of a human-built, predominantly technological, life world; a world which can only be understood if one recognizes the continuous interplay between science, technology and society. For Williams technology does not simply influence society and culture but is itself inherently social and cultural and should be studied accordingly. This insight implies that new technologies can only be successfully implemented in society if they are accompanied by social innovations. A distinguishing feature of Williams’ work is her use of literature as a source to analyze the all pervasive role of technology in our current society.

Besides being an outstanding and unique scholar in her field, Williams has also been an inspirational leader at MIT, whose scholarly reflections about the past were used as a guide to the institution’s future. From 1995 to 2000 Williams was the first humanist in the history of MIT who was entrusted the responsibility to serve as Dean for the Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs. In her book Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change (2002) she draws upon her experiences as Dean and historian of technology to reflect on the nature and challenges of engineering education. Williams’ pleas that insights from the humanities and social sciences are invaluable for the education of engineers, as they are responsible for bringing about the social innovations that are needed to successfully integrate technological innovations in society.”

For Eindhoven University of Technology it is a true honor and pleasure to add Professor Williams’ name to its list of honorary doctorates. In his closing speech the Rector Magnificus of Eindhoven University of Technology emphasized that Williams’ work and her visits to Eindhoven have been influential for the upcoming restructuring of the undergraduate engineering education of the university.  In the future, engineers who are educated in Eindhoven will enter the field with a sound knowledge of the main insights of the humanities and social sciences.

The day after receiving the honorary doctorate Rosalind Williams gave a well visited and thought-provoking lecture about her new book project provisionally entitled Beyond the end of the World: Water, romance, and human empire. In the book she explores how the relationship between human beings and the earth transformed in the late nineteenth century, drawing evidence from the work of well-known imaginative writers from that era to explain for this rise of human dominance on the planet. Besides that, she gave an interview to Johan Schot for a Dutch magazine about engineering, which is widely read by the engineering community in the Netherlands. The article will be published in September 2011.

The full text of the laudation of Johan Schot can be downloaded here.