Dorthe Gert Simonsen

Dorthe Gert Simonsen serves as Vice Dean for Research and Impact and Director of the PhD School at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, where she drives research excellence, external funding initiatives, and early-career researcher development. With extensive governance experience including chairing the Danish Independent Research Council for the Humanities (2017-2019), she shapes humanities scholarship across Nordic and European networks like HERA and NOS-HS.

Her research interrogates 20th-century entanglements of technology, mobility, and cultural practices through theoretical lenses including new materialism, poststructuralism, and Actor-Network Theory. Key contributions examine aviation's role in spatial formations, gendered aerial experiences, and temporal reconstructions, culminating in her current 'Anthropocene Air' project that repositions flight within planetary environmental crises. This work bridges empirical studies of vertical geographies with philosophical explorations of historicity.

Analysis of recent publications reveals consistent engagement with material culture, environmental history, and critical theory across aviation studies, Americanization narratives, and conceptual historiography. Her scholarship demonstrates interdisciplinary movement between technological history, embodiment studies, and Anthropocene frameworks, increasingly emphasizing ecological entanglements in human-nonhuman networks.

She received the Einar Hansens legat for outstanding humanities research in 2011. Her service portfolio includes:

• Chair of Danish Independent Research Council for Humanities (2017-2019)
• Member of NOS-HS Nordic Research Councils (2017-2019)
• HERA Humanities in European Research Area participation
• Extensive peer review and editorial activities

As PhD School Director, Simonsen oversees doctoral training while advancing strategic research partnerships. Her leadership extends to talent development programs and academic governance committees, reflecting deep commitment to institutional research capacity building. Current activities focus on integrating environmental history with technological studies through her 'Anthropocene Air' framework, which investigates aviation's planetary-scale impacts while challenging anthropocentric historical narratives.