Stephen Snelders PhD

Dr. Stephen Snelders is a scientific researcher and lecturer at the Metamedical department of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is currently involved with studying the role of ship surgeons in the development of tropical medicine in the 17th and 18th century. Other research interests are: the historical and social implications of the use of inheritable concepts in medicine and the public domain; the use of psychedelic compounds in medicine and the public domain; and the history of medical public promotion in the early modern and modern era.

Research activities

Stephen Snelders (1963) studied history at the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, majoring in economics and social history and minoring in economy and social psychology. In 1988 he graduated with a biography of Arie Keppler, the first director of the Gemeentelijke Woningdienst in Amsterdam. After his graduation he worked as an editor and publicist. In 1994 he started as an external researcher at the Huizinga Institute and as a junior research fellow at IPSER, connected to the psychiatry faculty and neuro-psychology at the university of Maastricht, to perform his PhD research on the use of LSD and other hallucinogens in the Netherlands, under Willem Frijhoff, then professor in cultural history at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and from 1997 lecturer in new history at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and professor Charles Kaplan of the faculty Psychiatry and Neuropsychology at the University of Maastricht. Additionally, he was the editor of PAN Forum from 1995 to 1998, which is a newssheet on psychedelic research. From 1997 to 1998 he wrote his PhD thesis at the New History faculty of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and he graduated in 1999. In 2002, Snelders performed his post-doc research on the use of inheritable concepts in medicine and the public domain. Since 2004 he is continuing his research at the Metamedica department of the Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre. Also, he teaches 15th century Japanese sword fighting ‘Katori Shinto Ryu’, see www.katsujinken.nl.

More info: Metamedica of the VU Medical Centre