Saara Matala

Saara is Assistant Professor at the Division of Science, Technology and Society, at the Department of Technology Management and Economics.

Saara Matala is historian of industrialisation interested in the interaction between technology, economy, and politics over time. She has specialised in the history of modern maritime industries during the Cold War. Her first book, A History of Cold War Industrialisation – Finnish Shipbuilding between East and West (2021), examines how the global geopolitical conflict shaped technological development in a neutral country and civilian industry. The book increases our understanding of the long-term, often unexpected, consequences of economic sanctions and political alliances in industrial development. Her other research interests include Arctic maritime technology, winter navigation, mobile platform security, and oil capitalism.