Nicole Huijts

Nicole Huijts is assistant professor in the Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety group of the University of Twente.

Personal profile

Nicole Huijts is a researcher in the domains of risk perception, environmental psychology and human-technology interaction. The focus of her research is on the public perception and acceptance of new technologies in the domains of energy, ICT and transport. Nicole has extensive experience with multi-disciplinary research and education, particularly bringing together the fields of psychology, engineering and ethics. Previous to working at the University of Twente, she worked at the Eindhoven and Delft Universities of Technology.

Nicole has an MSc degree with honorable mention in Technology and Society from the Eindhoven University of Technology and a PhD degree from the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of the Delft University of Technology. She has also been a four months exchange student at the department of Engineering and Public Policy of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, and a one year scholar at the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious studies of the Radboud University, Nijmegen.

Research interests

Nicole's work currently consists of four main research lines:

1. Perceived privacy and security risks of smart home IoT
2. Perceived fairness in the energy transition
3. Emotions towards new technologies and risks
4. Interrelated effects of socio-demographic, spatial and psychological variables on technology acceptance.

She has developed the often-cited Technology Acceptance Framework.

Nicole is a member of the board of the Benelux Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis-Europe and participates in the Utwente Energy Transition and Behavior group. She is also affiliated to the UU/TUe Fair Energy Transition Consortium and the 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology.