Roos Metselaar winner UvA thesis prize 2024
Anthropologist Roos Metselaar has won the 2024 UvA Thesis Prize and with that a sum of three thousand euros. There were seven nominees, six women and one man.
According to the jury, all winning theses were socially relevant, original and of a very high standard. The seven nominees were the winners of the faculty thesis prize, each winning one thousand euros; from these seven, a grand prize winner was chosen by the jury. This year, Roos Metselaar was awarded the grand prize and a cash prize of three thousand euros.
Winner Metselaar wrote her thesis on sperm donors and how these donors are matched with intended parents. This is often done on resemblance: according to Metselaar, this is also how it is written down in hospital guidelines.
There are several reasons why similarity between donors and the intended parents is considered important, Metselaar explains in a video on YouTube. For instance, there ought to be more of a family feeling if the family members look alike. But Metselaar also discovered that some differences are actually accepted. For instance, one woman wanted her sperm donor to be tall, precisely because she herself was short and often suffered from this.
The other nominees consisted of five women and only one man: the opposite of the year 2022. Max Schoenmakers from ACTA wrote a thesis on the relationship between gum disease and cardiovascular disease; Maaike van Vulpen (FEB) on the aversion to algorithms in medical decision-making and Marta Pagliuca Pelacani (FGw) researched the transfer of knowledge within illiterate Italian farming communities.
In medicine, Amber den Hollander wrote her thesis on predicting patients’ hospital admissions using algorithms in the emergency room. Heleen Mulder was nominated on behalf of the FNWI with her thesis on ‘sterile neutrinos’, certain elementary particles. And the only male nominee, Ömer Arikan, wrote his thesis in law on how ESG factors are influencing the evolution of the corporate landscape.
The award ceremony was in the Aula this time, which was a wish of the previous jury members: in previous years, the thesis prize was awarded in a small room in Spui25 on the Spui.
