Roberto Cantoni

Roberto Cantoni was a postdoctoral researcher within CERI’s program on Nuclear Knowledges in 2017/18. He currently works on the project: “Promise brokers: a diachronic study of the epistemology of the energy promise in France (hydrocarbons and nuclear)”. Trained as a physicist (MSc from University ‘Federico II’ of Naples, 2004, summa cum laude), Roberto then studied history and philosophy of science and technology (MA from the University Paris 7 ‘Denis Diderot’, 2010) and science communication (Master from SISSA-ISAS of Trieste, 2011). Such a diverse approach to the co-production and diffusion of scientific knowledge led Roberto to a PhD in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester (2014, A1, equivalent to summa cum laude). He has later worked as IFRIS postdoctoral researcher within the Laboratory for Techniques, Territories and Societies (LATTS) from 2014 to 2016. Since his PhD dissertation, he has been researching the sociotechnical construction of energy systems in Europe, by adopting a transnational and diachronic approach. His research activity has focussed on the history of sociology of energy, including issues of waste management, in France, Italy, and Poland. In 2014 he won the Levinson Prize for essays, assigned by the Society for the History of Technology.

In 2017 he published Oil Exploration, Diplomacy, and Security in the Early Cold War with Routledge. This monograph studies the interaction between, on the one hand, oil exploration and transport technologies, and on the other hand, resource diplomacy and security in Early Cold War France and Italy. Roberto is a member of the editorial board of the H-Sci-Med-Tech network. He also collaborates to the Early Career Scholars’ section of the Tensions of Europe network, and he is part of the European Association of Social Anthropologists’ Energy Anthropology Network (EAN).