Background and activities

I use tools from anthropology and cognitive science to make sense of how humans interact with technology in health-care.

I manage the Centre for Simulation and Welfare Technology at the Department of Health Science, NTNU in Ålesund, where I am also deputy head of innovation.
 
A complete list of recent work can be found here: https://app.cristin.no/persons/show.jsf?id=45321 
 
We are currently building a strong community for teaching and research on two topics that are central to the future of health-care:
 

1) Immersive simulation environments used for training health-care professionals.

In our labs, students and professionals in the health sciences train in realistic environments, similar to those encountered in real-life practice. We also conduct research on various dimensions of simulation-based education.
 

2) Development and applications of novel welfare-technology, including ICT and social robots.

This work is in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Institutional and Home Care Services - Møre og Romsdal (where I am a research affiliate), and other networks, like ALV - Møre og Romsdal.  See: http://www.utviklingssenter.no/english.180221.no.html, and http://www.alv-moreogromsdal.no, for more information.

Our work on these subjects contributes to NTNU Health - one of the University's four strategic research areas (https://www.ntnu.edu/health/).

Campus Ålesund also has an Arena for eHealth, where we explore the interdisciplinary future of technology and health at our campus: https://www.ntnu.no/3h/ehelse. 

Guiding framework

Naturalistic theories of cultural transmission and the toolkit of the cognitive sciences offer exciting avenues for research on how communities of practice create and use knowledge. In particular, I'm exploring how the framework of distributed cognition can help us understand the orchestration of coupled human-technological systems in health care, and the practices of the experimental life sciences.

This framework pushes cognitive science toward a view of cognition as a property of systems that are larger than isolated individuals. This extends the reach of cognition to encompass a wider cognitive ecology, which includes people’s interactions with each other, as well as their relationships with technology, and other material resources for thinking and action.

I consider rigorous anthropological research to be crucial for the development of cognitive science. One way anthropologists can capture the fine micro-details of multimodal interaction in activity systems, comprised of humans and their technology, is through systematic analysis of digital video (cognitive ethnography). 


Background

My PhD investigated knowledge-making and technological innovation in marine science, by studying how a group of molecular parasitologists designed and developed a novel experimental system to discover tools for managing salmon lice (a persistent threat to salmon farming in Norway). My alma mater is the University of Bergen.

From March 2017 to March 2018, I worked on improving the conditions for local democracy and citizen-participation through novel enabling technologies, in the five municipalities that will constitute the new Ålesund municipal government from 1.1.2020. This work was done in close collaboration with politicians, administrators, and municipal executives.

In 2012, I was as an advisor at the Data Protection Official for Research, at Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD). See: http://www.nsd.uib.no/nsd/english/index.html.

My masters degree from 2011 was on the management and politics of forest conservation through protected areas in post-war Lebanon. I did my first ethnographic fieldwork in Lebanon's Shouf Mountains.

Before entering academia, I trained as a chef's apprentice, and worked in the culinary arts for some years as a professional cook.

Scientific, academic and artistic work

Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database

2019

  • Forberg, Elisabeth; Solberg, Mads. (2019) Kvalitet og relevans i praksisstudier - Tverrprofesjonell in situ simulering med studenter og ansatte. SimMidt 2019 . SimMidt; Levanger. 2019-02-12.
  • Solberg, Mads; Kirchhoff, Ralf. (2019) Robotteknologi og helse – en retrospektiv innholdsanalyse av norske avisartikler fra 2000 til 2018. Helsetjenesteforskningskonferansen 2019 . Nasjonalt nettverk for helsetjenesteforskning; Trondheim. 2019-03-12 - 2019-03-13.

2018

  • Solberg, Mads. (2018) – Må akseptere at ikke alt fungerer på Helsehuset. Åndalsnes Avis [Avis]. 2018-11-15.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2018) Helseinnovasjon. Innovasjonsfestivalen . Innovasjonsfestivalen (Nordveggen AS); Åndalsnes. 2018-11-15 - 2018-11-15.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2018) Helseinnovasjon tema på Innovasjonsfestivalen – Må jobbe sammen for nye løsninger. Romsdals Budstikke [Avis]. 2018-11-16.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2018) Varme hender eller kaldt stål - skal robotene pleie oss i fremtiden?. NTNU Kveld . NTNU; Ålesund. 2018-09-27 - 2019-09-27.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2018) Varme hender eller kaldt stål - skal robotene pleie oss i fremtiden?. Intervju . NRK Møre og Romsdal; Ålesund. 2018-09-27 - 2019-09-27.

2017

2016

  • Solberg, Mads. (2016) A Cognitive Ethnography of Material Culture and Distributed Cognition in an Experimental System: The Case of Licelab. Current Directions in Research on Cognition and Culture . Society for Anthropological Sciences; Vancouver. 2016-03-31.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2016) Epistemic Actions, Material Culture and Distributed Cognition Among Marine Molecular Biologists. EASA 2016 . European Association for Social Anthropologists; Milan. 2016-07-23.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2016) Innovasjon, kognisjon og materiell kultur i laboratoriet. Fagdrypp . Møreforskning; Ålesund. 2016-01-29.

2015

  • Solberg, Mads. (2015) Book Review - Hallam Stevens' Life Out of Seqence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics (2013). Somatosphere: Science, Medicine and Anthropology.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2015) Innovation, cognition and material culture in the lab: some perspectives from cognitive anthropology. Molecular and Computational Biology Research School 2015 . University of Bergen; Glesvær. 2015-10-20 - 2015-10-20.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2015) Innovation, cognition and material culture in the lab: some perspectives from the cognitive anthropology of science. Molecular and Computational Biology Research School 2015 . University of Bergen; Glesvær. 2015-10-20 - 2015-10-20.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2015) On the Co-Evolution of Aquaculture, Scientific Knowledge and Salmon Lice. American Anthropological Association 114th Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado . American Anthropological Association; Denver. 2015-11-19 - 2015-11-22.

2014

  • Solberg, Mads. (2014) Book Review - Terrence W. Deacon's Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter (2013). Somatosphere: Science, Medicine and Anthropology.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2014) Patronage, contextual flexibility and organisational innovation in Lebanese protected areas management. Conservation and Society. vol. 12 (3).
  • Solberg, Mads. (2014) Thinking about scientific knowledge: perspectives from cognitive anthropology. Molecular and Computational Biology Research School 2014 . Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen; Glesvær. 2014-09-09 - 2014-09-09.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2014) Towards a cognitive ethnography of marine science: the case of sea lice research. Lab meeting D-COG HCI-Lab, Dept. of cognitive science, UCSD . D-COG HCI-Lab, Dept. of cognitive science, UCSD; University of California, San Diego. 2014-02-28.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2014) Towards a cognitive ethnography of marine science: the case of sea lice research. Lab meeting for Morana Alac's research group, Communication and Science Studies, University of California - San Diego, 10.03.14. Lab meeting . Morana Alac; UCSD. 2014-03-10.
  • Solberg, Mads; Dalvin, Sussie Trine. (2014) Public perceptions of salmon farming and salmon lice in Norway, the U.K. and Canada. Sealice 2014 ; Maine. 2014-08-31 - 2014-09-05.

2013

  • Solberg, Mads. (2013) Thinking about scientific knowledge: perspectives from cognitive anthropology. Molecular and Computational Biology Research School 2013 . Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen; Glesvær. 2013-09-03 - 2013-09-03.
  • Solberg, Mads. (2013) Towards a cognitive ethnography of marine science: multimodal interaction in a high-tech research environment. ASFPG Postnormal science workshop 2013 . ASFPG; Hamburg. 2013-09-18 - 2013-09-20.

2011

  • Solberg, Mads. (2011) Skinnholisme og menneskelig mangfold: refleksjoner omkring det antropologiske prosjekt fra en student. Norsk Antropologisk Forenings Årskonferanse 2011 . Norsk Antropologisk Forening; Oslo. 2011-05-06 - 2011-05-08.
  • Solberg, Mads; Knudsen, Ståle. (2011) Managing nature, people and development. Patronage, Confessionalism and Market-Based Conservation in a Lebanese Protected Area. 2011.