A.F. (Floor) Haalboom, PhD

Floor Haalboom is a medical and environmental historian. Her research focuses on the modern history of environmental and health problems associated with modern livestock farming, veterinary medicine, One Health and concepts of health and disease. She obtained her doctoral degree in the history of (veterinary) medicine at Utrecht University in 2017.
She is currently working on the Dutch Research Council-funded project ‘What does your meat eat? A global environmental history of Dutch livestock feed (1954-2020)’.
In 2019-2021, Haalboom developed diversity & inclusion education for Bachelor students of Medicine, which she is currently implementing in the medical curriculum. 

• Medical and veterinary history
• Environmental history
• History of science
• History of public health
• History of infectious diseases and One Health
• History of intensive livestock farming
• History of disease (diabetes mellitus)
• Diversity & Inclusion education

Education

• PhD history of (veterinary) medicine, Utrecht University (2017)
• University Teaching Qualification (BKO), UMC Utrecht (2016)
• MA Historical and Comparative Studies of the Sciences and the Humanities, Utrecht University and University of Minnesota (2012)
• BA Dutch Language and Culture, cum laude, Utrecht University (2010)
• BSc Biology, Utrecht University (2009)

Career

Floor Haalboom obtained her doctorate in 2017 at Utrecht University with the dissertation ‘Negotiating Zoonoses’, on the societal dealings with infectious diseases shared by humans and livestock (‘zoonoses’) in the Netherlands between 1898 and 2001. The dissertation received a lot of national media attention in the context of the Q-fever crisis (2017-2018) and the corona pandemic (2020-2021). In 2018-2019, Haalboom was Carson Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, working on the project ‘Feeding Factory Farms’. In 2020-2021, Haalboom worked as post-doctoral historian on the patient history of diabetes as part of the Dutch Research Council-funded project ‘Health and disease as practical concepts - a pragmatist approach to the conceptualization of health and disease’ (led by prof. dr. Maartje Schermer). 

Selected publications:

Floor Haalboom, ‘Oceans and Landless Farms: Linking Southern and Northern Shadow Places of Industrial Livestock (1954-1975)’, Environment and History (2020) Fast Track https://doi.org/10.3197/096734020X15900760737202

Floor Haalboom, ‘Scientists in cowsheds: disputes over hygienic milk production in the Netherlands, 1918-1928’, in: Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis, Andreas Weber and Huib Zuidervaart (eds.), Locations of Knowledge in Dutch Contexts (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2019) 262-289

F. Haalboom, ‘Resurrecting Janus in the twentieth century history of medicine and science’, Studium: Tijdschrift voor Wetenschaps- en Universiteitsgeschiedenis / Revue d’Histoire des Sciences et des Universités 12 (2019) 161-171 http://doi.org/10.18352/studium.10200

Floor Haalboom, Book review of Stuart Blume, Immunization: How Vaccines Became Controversial, Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society 109 (2018) 664-665.

A.F. Haalboom, ‘Negotiating zoonoses: dealings with infectious diseases shared by humans and livestock in the Netherlands (1898-2001)’ (dissertation, Utrecht University, 2017) https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/354208

Floor Haalboom, ‘Who owns Salmonella? The politics of infections shared by humans and livestock in the Netherlands, 1959-1965’, BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review 132:1 (2017) 83–103 https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10311

A.F. Haalboom, ‘Was de uitbraak van Q‐koorts een verrassing?’, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 161:33 (2017) 31-34 https://www.ntvg.nl/artikelen/was‐de‐uitbraak‐van‐q‐koorts‐eenverrassing

A.F. Haalboom, Thematische Collectie: Onderhandelen over zoönosen in Nederland (1898-2001), oral history interviews depository,DANS (The Hague) https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/datasets/id/easy-dataset:76300

Floor Haalboom, ‘“Spanish” flu and army horses: what historians and biologists can learn from a history of animals with flu during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic’, Studium: Tijdschrift voor Wetenschaps- en Universiteitsgeschiedenis / Revue d’Histoire des Sciences et des Universités 7 (2014) 124-139 http://doi.org/10.18352/studium.9830

Selection of Dutch media appearances about COVID-19 and the history of zoonoses (2020-2021):

* ‘Floor Haalboom over het overspringen van virussen van dier naar mens’, Studio Erasmus, Erasmus University Rotterdam (april 2021) https://youtu.be/agI0fjm5ebA

* Research journalism on zoonoses by Miro Lucassen for Follow the Money (2 May 2020) https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/volgende-epidemie-qkoorts-corona-overrompelen and by Thomas Muntz, Felix Voogt and Emiel Woutersen for De Groene Amsterdammer (15 April 2020) https://www.groene.nl/artikel/we-zijn-nog-steeds-niet-voorbereid

* Guest in radio program OVT (12 April: https://www.nporadio1.nl/ovt/onderwerpen/56944-2020-04-12-de-geschiedenis-van-zooenosen and 3 May 2020: https://www.nporadio1.nl/ovt/onderwerpen/58064-2020-05-03-de-weer-actuele-klassieker-plagues-peoples)

* Webinar ‘Ziek door dieren: een geschiedenis van zoönosen’ in Gewina gaat viraal! series (10 July 2020) http://www.gewina.nl/gewina-gaat-viraal-webinar-serie/#more-4434

* Podcast episode ‘Ziek door dieren’ (October 2, 2020) https://boerhaave.buzzsprout.com/ and book section F. Haalboom, ‘Besmetting van dier op mens: één vleermuis is genoeg’, in: Annelore Scholten en Thomas van Gulik (ed.), Besmet! Angst voor de onzichtbare vijand (Zutphen, 2020) for the Exhibition Besmet! Rijksmuseum Boerhaave

Selection of Dutch media appearances about dissertation project (2017-2018):

    *  Guest speaker at Eindconferentie Q-support, Stichting Q-support in Eindhoven (15 March 2018)

* Guest speaker at local meeting on the impact of the livestock industry in Deurne (29 November 2017), covered by Dutch national television: Jan Eijkelboom, ‘Varkensoverlast in Deurne’, Nieuwsuur (2 December 2017) https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2205656-varkensstank-zorgt-voor-sociale-spanningen-in-deurne.html

* ‘Hepatitis E, de nieuwe Q-koorts?’, guest in radio program Argos (7 oktober 2017) https://www.vpro.nl/argos/media/afleveringen/2017/hepatitis-e-de-nieuwe-q-koorts.html

* Marc Chavannes, ‘Onze gezondheid wordt bewaakt door de minister van boerenzaken’, digital platform De Correspondent (29 September 2017) https://decorrespondent.nl/7388/onze-gezondheid-wordt-bewaakt-door-de-minister-van-boerenzaken/148605364512-9bd51646?pk_campaign=sharer&pk_kwd=link

* Peter de Graaf, ‘Bij infectieziekten stelt overheid belang van boer boven volksgezondheid’, national newspaper De Volkskrant (18 September 2017) https://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/bij-infectieziekten-stelt-overheid-belang-van-boer-boven-volksgezondheid~a4517111/

• Diversity & Inclusion education for medical Bachelor students, Erasmus MC
• Medical History education, Erasmus MC
• Guest lecturer in Minor Medical Humanities, Radboud UMC
• Guest lectures on the (environmental) history of zoonotic diseases, One Health, and veterinary medicine, Veterinary Faculty and UMC, Utrecht University

Board member (secretary) of Gewina, the Belgian-Dutch Society for the History of Science and Universities(2019-present)

Member of the Descartes Center for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Utrecht University

Education project grant, ‘Diversiteit & Inclusiviteit voor de Erasmusarts (masterfase)’ [Diversity and Inclusion for the Erasmusdoctor (master phase)], Erasmus University Medical Center (2021)

VENI grant, ‘What does your meat eat? A global environmental history of Dutch livestock feed (1954-2020)’, 2021-2025, Dutch Research Council (NWO) (2020)

Carson Fellowship, project ‘Feeding Factory Farms: A Global Environmental History of Livestock Feed’, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (2018)

Research grant for history of public perceptions of livestock diseases in the Netherlands (1961-2001), Veterinair Historisch Genootschap (2017)

Conference grant, Stichting Historia Medicinae (2017)

Young Scholars Award (third prize), World Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine (2014)