Dr. Iina Hellsten

Iina Hellsten is an assistant professor of Science Communication at the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is based on the Athena Institute for Research on Innovation and Communication in Health and Life Sciences. Her academic interest focuses on how it is possible that societies can keep functioning despite frequent problems of translations and subsequent miscommunications between the various sub-domains (or discourses) in society-- such as the sciences, the mass media and the publics? How is it possible that social systems (e.g. the sciences, the mass media and the publics) communicate with each other? 2) How can one analyse and trace such cross-domain communications? Her research has focused on the politics of metaphors in public controversies on emerging biosciences such as cloning, genomics, gm-foods, the Human Genome Project, stem cell research, bird flu and syntethic biology.
Before moving to the VU University Amsterdam in January 2008, she worked as a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) (2004-2007), and as a post doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School for Communications Research (ASCoR) (2002-2004). She has published in journals including Science Communication, Scientometrics, New Genetics and Society, New Media &  Society, Metaphor and Symbol, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Information Research, Internet Research, Science as Culture.

Iina Hellsten is panel speaker in session 3.6: Implications for the Science-Policy Interface.