Matthias Kaiser is Professor at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities (SVT) at the University of Bergen, and Professor II at NTNU in Trondheim. He has studied at the University of Munich, University of Oslo, Stanford University and Frankfurt University. His areas of expertise include: philosophy of science (Dr.phil.), ethics of science, and technology assessment. He is also an Affiliated Fellow at the Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures at the University of Auckland.

Matthias was born in Germany, in Leipzig, which at the time was still under a communist regime. Luckily his parents escaped to West Germany in the nick of time before the Berlin Wall. There he was a refugee! Even though just starting school, this experience of a very different culture and regime turned him into a sceptic of all presumed authorities. In other words, he became a philosopher at a young age. After high school, which was mainly about the natural sciences and mathematics, he wanted to study something different and so he studied philosophy. But already during the second term he found out that he cannot do philosophy without a good grasp of logic, and that brought him to study mathematics. For his thesis he wanted to combine philosophy and logic, so he went to Norway where he had some good professors. Now he was also an immigrant! His interests turned to the sciences, both fascinated by their theories and at the same time puzzled by the misuse of science in politics.

Now there is no trace of logic left in him, he is all about ambiguity and uncertainty, in science as in life. Furthermore, he is deeply puzzled about values, wondering about his own, but mostly about those of other people, the academic lot in particular. His life has turned post-normal, and he thinks this is a good basis for work in the AFINO project.

Besides this, he has written a thriller, he likes to cook for others, and he plays electric blues bass. Politically, he is a hard-core liberal European to the bone!