SBE Podcast

In this episode of the SBE Podcast, recorded during this year’s Weekend van de Wetenschap, we speak with Sonja Zaar, Assistant Professor at OSE, Tim Hilken, Associate Professor in Marketing and Supply Chain Management and Désirée Schumacher, Lecturer at OSE, who welcomed children and families to Maastricht University for a day of discovery, experimentation and hands-on learning.They discuss why it is so important to spark an interest in science from an early age and how interactive activities can help young people see research in a new light. We also explore the workshops they ran during the event, from leadership and curiosity-driven research to emerging technologies and innovation.These conversations highlight the value of engaging with the wider community and encouraging the next generation to ask questions, think critically and discover how research can help us better understand the world around us.

In this episode of the SBE Podcast, we speak with Corinna Rott, who recently joined Maastricht University’s Department of Organisation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship (OSE) as a Postdoctoral Researcher. The conversation follows our previous discussion with Prof. Ioannis Pavlidis, Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston, to further explore the importance of stress awareness and management.Having worked with Prof. Pavlidis for several years before pursuing her PhD at Maastricht University, Corinna's research focuses on how stress affects leaders of high-performance teams and how biofeedback can support stress awareness and resilience.During the episode, Corinna discusses recent advancements in wearable technology for detecting stress signals and shares insights into stress management. She explores some practical tips for how individuals can better recognise and respond to stress, as well as strategies for building resilience in both academic and professional settings.

In this episode of the SBE Podcast, we speak with Prof. Ioannis Pavlidis, Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston, about how technology can reveal human stress without invasive measurements. From thermal imaging of the face to data from everyday devices such as smartwatches, he explains how his research uses computing and sensing technologies to understand our emotions and physiological responses. We also explore his work on the “science of science” and what happens when researchers from different disciplines come together to tackle complex challenges.

How to rationally decide in the supermarket | Niels Holtrop | SBE Podcast #26 (Ageing Special)In this episode of the SBE Podcast, we are happy to invite Niels Holtrop. Together, we discuss how retail organizations organize their environments for their customers, how the transformation towards e-commerce shapes consumer behavior, and how we make decisions about our own health overall.Do claims about food have an effect on our buying decisions? What are the main claims that make us buy something at all? How can we keep a clear head within all the promotions in a supermarket? And how can ageing and diseases be connected to this topic?These and many more questions are answered by Niels Holtrop, who is working at Maastricht University as an Associate Professor. Having an academic background in Marketing, he pursued his PhD in Groningen and published important research in journals like the Journal of Retailing or the International Journal of Research in Marketing. His passion for decision making and health brought him to Maastricht, where he now researches the use of econometric and statistical methods to improve marketing decisions and measure consumer choice. In the SBE Podcast, he shares his opinion on the responsibility of retailers and how he keeps a clear head when doing groceries.

In this episode of the SBE Podcast, we are happy to invite Julian Ashwin. Together, we discuss how health can be measured, how ageing impacts our working decisions, and how health and ageing are relevant for fundamental societal developments. Also, we discuss the question if it becomes the new normal to follow several career paths.How can health be defined, and which new measures are needed? What should health measurement do? What impacts people’s decisions to stop working? What are the political challenges and strategies to deal with ageing and health? Is it likely that we will have many different careers in the future instead of just one?These and many more questions are answered by Julian Ashwin, who has worked at Maastricht University as an Assistant Professor in Economics since 2023. Having an academic background in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the University of Oxford, he pursued his PhD in the UK and worked in renowned positions at Goldman Sachs, the European Central Bank or the World Bank. His passion for researching health and ageing from an economic perspective brought him from Oxford to Maastricht where he now researches macroeconomics, aging and longevity, natural language processing methods, expectations and learning. In the SBE Podcast, he shares his opinion on what needs to change in researching health and how he sees ageing in his own career.