Dr. Raf De Bont

Biography

Raf de Bont holds the chair in the History of Science and Environment at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University. From 2021 to 2024, he served as Chair of the History Department and currently serves as Vice-Dean for Research. De Bont studied History at the University of Leuven and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he completed his doctoral degree with a thesis on the reception of evolutionary theory in Belgium in 2005. Following his doctorate, he held a postdoctoral position at the University of Leuven and was a visiting fellow at both Cambridge University and Imperial College London. He specializes in the history of human-animal relations, ecology, international organizations, globalization, scientific fieldwork, and evolutionary theory. Through his research and teaching, de Bont contributes significantly to the understanding of historical perspectives within environmental science.