Dr. Roos Anne Hopman

Roos Hopman is a researcher interested in the politics and practices of biological diversity, which often leads her to the field of genetics. In light of the FWF funded ‘Banking on zoos for conservation?’, she is currently working on understanding how zoos ‘manage’ their animals genetically to conserve endangered species in the wild. Previously, as a postdoc in the Berlin-based ‘Museums & Society’ project, she conducted participant observation on digitization work in the malacology (snails, slugs, octopods) collection of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Here she learned how biodiversity data is produced in natural history museums, and where she became charmed by snails and other molluscs. Roos’ PhD research was conducted at the University of Amsterdam as part of the ‘RaceFaceID’ project, and focused on forensic genetic practices of human identification. Through ethnographic work in laboratories in the Netherlands and the United States, she traced how and when racial categories became relevant in giving face to unknown suspects. Besides her research work, she is an editor for the EASST Review and is active for expropriation in Berlin.

Selected publications

Hopman, R. (2025) The stuff of taxonomic nightmares: the frustrating volatility of color. 4S Backchannels, March. https://4sonline.org/news_manager.php?page=40556

Hopman, R. (2024) Snails, time, data: on the politics of mass-digitization and the possibility of data drift. Big Data & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241267760

Hopman, R. and Bleumink, R. (2023) Between pencils and genetic markers: rethinking innovation in policing through forensic face-making technologies. The International Journal of Police Science & Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/14613557231173213

Hopman, R., Van Oorschot, I. and M’charek, A. (2022) ‘From promise to practice: anticipatory work and the adoption of Massively Parallel Sequencing in forensics.’ In The Law and International Forensic DNA Profiling: Exploring Practices and Politics of Technolegal Worlds, edited by Victor Toom, Matthias Wienroth and Amade M’charek. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429322358

Hopman, R. (2022) Facing Genetics. An Ethnography of Race in Forensic DNA Phenotyping Practices (PhD diss., University of Amsterdam). https://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/bdc20728-f506-4609-81a2-dea3e6d426ce

Hopman, R. (2021) The face as folded object: race and the problems with ‘progress’ in forensic DNA phenotyping technologies. Social Studies of Science 53(6): 869-890. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127211035562

Hopman, R. and M’charek, A. (2020) Facing the unknown suspect: Forensic DNA phenotyping and the oscillation between the individual and the collective. BioSocieties 15: 438–462. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-020-00190-9

Hopman, R. (2020) Opening up forensic DNA phenotyping: the logics of accuracy, commonality and valuing. New Genetics and Society 39(4): 424-440. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2020.1755638