We are delighted to welcome another new colleague to ESRI. Dr Alexandre Pais joined us as a Research Fellow in September, from the University of Lisbon, where he worked on the project Urban Boundaries, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.   After completing his licentiate in mathematics, followed by a master degree in mathematics education, both from University of Lisbon, Alexandre taught for 9 years in several Portuguese public schools. He then completed a PhD at Aalborg University, Denmark. His research focusses on a critical analysis of the relation between mathematics education and the political, economic and ideological context of using Maths in contemporary society. He has developed a dialectical materialist critique of education, using mathematics education as a case study; and using the psychoanalytical work of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Slavoj Žižek to investigate the relations between science, education and society. He has published several articles on this work in Educational Studies in Mathematics (read here, here and here). Following his PhD he won a postdoctoral fellowship at Aalborg University, where he participated in the organisation and teaching of masters courses in Technoanthropology and Applied Philosophy, before working on the Urban Boundaries project in Lisbon.

Harry Torrance