Alies Jansen is a PhD candidate in Global Transformations and Governance Challenges at the Institute for History at Leiden University. In 2025, she is a visiting researcher in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

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Alies Jansen is a PhD candidate in Global Transformations and Governance Challenges at the Institute for History at Leiden University. In 2025, she is a visiting researcher in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Her research charts the rise and fall of “global modeling”, a scientific field which developed the earliest computer models seeking to predict the world’s future and to simulate the effects of policy interventions during the Cold War. Drawing on archival materials from Argentina, Brazil, the United States, the Netherlands, Austria, and Japan, she demonstrates how researchers and policymakers mobilized their computer-assisted “predictions” for diverse purposes beyond forecasting, such as military preparation, economic planning, and political prefiguration.

Jansen holds a BA in History from Utrecht University and a MA in International Relations from Leiden University, both with distinction (cum laude). Until 2020, she worked at PAX, the Dutch peace organization. She served as the program officer for its Humanitarian Disarmament team, which co-founded the European Forum on Armed Drones and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

More information about Global Transformations and Governance Challenges.