Julia Ravanis

Julia Ravanis obtained her PhD in History of Technology at Chalmers in the summer of 2025, and holds a Master's degree in History of Science and Ideas and a Master's degree in Engineering Physics.

Julia is employed at the Division of Nano and Biophysics as project manager for establishing a new popular science platform at Chalmers University of Technology and Lund University. The aim of the project is to build a forum for natural scientists to seriously engage in the third task, disseminate their research results to the public and participate in the public debate on interdisciplinary and contemporary issues such as the climate crisis, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. The forum includes training and guidance for researchers who want to write popular science, public lectures and discussion series where scientists, humanities scholars and artists all contribute, and initiatives aimed at promoting engineering students' ability to relate a specialised problem-solving process to a general societal or existential issue.

The project is being carried out in collaboration with the centre of excellence ‘COMMONS: Commonalities in biomembrane and biomolecular interactions’ at Lund University, the Department of Physics and Applied Quantum Physics at Chalmers University of Technology, the Wallenberg Centre for Quantum Technology, and the cultural journal Glänta.

More about Julia
Julia's thesis focuses on the work of some of Sweden’s computing pioneers at the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOA) during the period 1955–1975. The thesis shows how Sweden’s prioritisation of military research during the early Cold War conditioned the emergence of work routines and professional identities in scientific data processing. It is a history of how material, experience-based computing was hidden behind systematic and theoretical programming. This, in turn, had a great impact on questions related to gender, class, and knowledge.

Julia is the author of the books ‘Skönheten i kaos’ (2021) and ‘Emmys Teorem’ (2024), a member of the editorial board of the magazine Glänta and since 2020 of the Swedish National Committee for the History of Science and Technology. For more information, see https://juliaravanis.se/