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Roque Manuel Jiménez Sumalave

jimenezsumalave@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Short Vita
Roque Manuel Jiménez Sumalave is a sociologist (Universidad del Atlántico) with a Master’s in Social Studies of Science from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His research examines how scientists, policymakers, publics, and non-human actors participate in the standardization of emerging technologies such as fracking and, more recently, quantum infrastructures. He has also conducted ethnographic work on various projects related to the Colombian peace deal. He is currently a doctoral researcher in the DFG-funded Research Training Group Fixing Futures: Technologies of Anticipation in Contemporary Societies.

Project Description
In his doctoral research, Roque Manuel Jiménez Sumalave investigates the construction of governance in quantum technologies, with a focus on the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI). Adopting a material-semiotic approach, he follows the development of one of the most ambitious quantum networks in Europe, an infrastructure that relies on the principles of quantum physics to enable a new paradigm of cryptographic communication, fundamentally different from classical approaches. His research traces how scientists, policymakers, publics, and non-human actors collaboratively construct standards and regulations, and how they work to translate the optimal quantum conditions of the laboratory into complex external environments shaped by multiple forms of intervention.
Through this work, he seeks to understand how futures are shaped in the present, and how anticipatory technologies evolve over time as they are influenced, negotiated, and reconfigured by different actors.