Dr. Takahashi is Assistant Professor for Transdisciplinary STS. He works on science communication and crises of public trust. He is especially interested in how democracies decide which experts to trust. Much of his work to date has examined how societies balance expert authority with democratic accountability in governing public health and environmental risks.
Dr. Takahashi's work has been published in leading academic journals such as Social Studies of Science, GeoHumanities, and Annals of the ICRP, and has been covered in media outlets such as The Washington Post, New Statesman, ARTE, BBC, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and The British Journal of Photography.
Dr. Takahashi received his BA, MPhil and PhD at Cambridge University. He wrote his thesis on how claims to expert authority were made and contested following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Makoto brings to VU an international research practice, developed through posts in five nations, namely, UK (Cambridge), USA (Harvard ), Japan (Waseda), Germany (TUM), and the Netherlands (VU Amsterdam). His work combines academic rigor with a passion for policy and experimental public engagement. His recent work has explored how art can be used to foster dialogues around controversial topics. He is the lead curator of the traveling exhibition Picturing the Invisible. Among other accolades, Makoto has been (co-)awarded the American Association of Geographers’ (AAG) Jacques May Thesis Prize, a Fulbright-Lloyd's Fellowship, and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology's (EASST) Ziman Award for public engagement.
