Science Studies Network 2009-2010
SSNet was founded in 2007 as a network of faculty and graduate students at the University of Washington who share an interest in science and technology studies. We have run two year-long bi-weekly colloquia: a cross-disciplinary exploration of current network members’ interests in 2007-2008, and a thematic readings-based seminar on “Democratizing Science” in 2008-2009.
Representations: A Science Studies Network Speaker Series 2009-2010
Please join us for Representations, a speaker series exploring both the practices of representing Nature in the sciences and the ways in which science serves to represent diverse communities and cultural perspectives in the study of the natural world.
The schedule of speakers follows, and notices of colloquia will be posted as details are finalized. All SSNet events are free and open to the public, but the lunchtime meetings will require an RSVP.
All lectures will be held in CMU 120 beginning at 4pm.
See the SSNet Calendar for more details.
Helen Longino (Depatment of Philosophy, Stanford University)
October 21: “Navigating the Social Turn”
Paul Rabinow (Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley)
April 19: “Synthetic Biology, Political Spirituality: Reflections on Some Actual Things”
Michael Lynch (Science and Technology Studies Dept., Cornell University)
May 10: “‘Seeing Atoms’: Instrument-laden Perception and the Production of Nano-images”
Upcoming Visiting Speaker 5/10 - Michael Lynch
Professor Michael Lynch
(Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University)
Monday, May 10, 2010 :
As part of our continuing speaker series, Representations, we are pleased to announce the details of Michael Lynch's visit on May 10th. Professor Lynch will join us for a lunch colloquium discussion and give an afternoon lecture. Both events are free and open to the public, but the lunchtime meeting does require an RSVP.
Michael Lynch is a Professor in the Department of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University. His study of electron microscopic research in a neuroscience laboratory was one of the earliest ethnographic studies of visualization and discourse in day-to-day laboratory research. He also has investigated aesthetic judgments used by astrophysicists when preparing digital images, and is currently conducting a study of visualization in astronomy. Other research interests include the relations between law and science with a focus on forensic DNA analysis and the sociology of mental disorders. He is Editor of the journal Social Studies of Science, and past President of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).
Science Studies Network Public Lecture
May 10, 2010
4:00pm, Communications 120
Title: ‘Seeing atoms’: Instrument-laden perception and the production of nano-images
Abstract: Instrumentally mediated vision has long been a subject of wonder and skepticism. Although it is commonplace to speak of ‘seeing’ with instruments, there continues to be debate about what that means. Questions about seeing atoms with the probe microscopes used in nanoscience and nanotechnology research are particularly fraught, because such instruments work on different principles than optical instruments. Rather than extending sight, they extend ‘touch’ by probing surfaces. Probe microscopes produce arrays of measurements that can be translated into visual topography, but scholars who have taken interest in these instruments, as well as many scientists who use them, have difficulty coming to terms with what such topography means or indicates. Based on preliminary study of images of nanoscale objects, this paper examines the way instrument-laden perception is a matter of forming, shaping, and translating data into visually intelligible objects. Examples from probe microscopy suggest that ‘seeing’ nanoscale phenomena is a material craft that integrates data with visual conventions associated with molecular modeling as well as macroscopic objects and scenes.
Science Studies Network/Philosophy of Science lunch colloquium
May 10, 2010
12:00-1:20pm, Communications 202
Link to RSVP (required)
Professor Lynch will lead a discussion of some of his work related to visualization and representation in science:
• Michael, Lynch, "Discipline and the material form of images," Social Studies of Science 15(1): 37-66 (1985).
• Cyrus Mody and Michael Lynch, “Test objects and other epistemic things:
a history of a nanoscale object,” British Journal for History of Science (forthcoming).
Calendar At-A-Glance
STS Speakers and Discussion Groups - UW 2009-2010
Philosophy of Science Reading Group
The UW Philosophy of Science Group is running a research reading group organized around the theme of "representations and models in science" during the 2009-2010 academic year. The aim of the group is to support and nurture research projects for faculty and grads. Each term, the group will meet for 5 sessions to discuss selected readings and 1-2 additional sessions to discuss work in progress by faculty and graduate students.
All interested faculty and grads are welcome to join us! Readings are made available on a catalyst website. Please contact Andrea Woody (awoody@u.washington.edu) if you would like to receive information about the group and access to the readings throughout the term.
There are a great many other STS visitors and discussion groups taking shape this year, sponsored by SSNet members’ home departments and by working groups in related areas. If you have information about any event that might be of interest to SSNet members, be sure to send a notice out through the SSNet list and we will post the date and details on our calendar.
Curriculum Development in Science and Technology Studies
A primary goal of SSNet is to coordinate and build upon the rich array of courses and programs in science and technology studies (STS) currently offered at UW. We have several curriculum projects under way; see Curriculum Project for more details. Our priorities this year are to build on two intiatives begun last year:
* Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in STS: We are in the process of drafting the proposal for a graduate certificate that will serve both science students interested in the historical, social, and normative contexts of their research practice, and humanities and social science students engaged in science studies. We’d be glad of your input and advice: see the Certificate section of the Curriculum Project page for background on these plans and the proposal, when it’s ready to circulate.
* On-line Directory of STS Courses: We are actively searching for information about STS-relevant coursework offered at UW. If you are teaching courses in this area and would like to get the word out, please post a description of your courses on our SSNet Courses Wiki.
Northwest STS Consortium and Summer Institute
There is tremendous strength in STS in the Pacific Northwest; as a UW-based network, SSNet is committed to building on these collective strengths and finding ways to productively link our existing discipline and institution-specific initiatives.
This summer, SSNet members met with our UBC counterparts to discuss the feasibility of jointly sponsoring a NW STS Summer Institute and collaborating on a number of other fronts. We are actively developing plans to sponsor our first NW STS Summer Institute next year. Watch this site for details!
One immediate outcome of this meeting is a plan to develop a NW Regional STS Calendar – so information about all STS events at universities and colleges in the region is accessible in one place. We expect to have a regional complement to our local UW - SSNet calendar up and running in the next few weeks. Check back soon!
Congratulations to our UBC colleagues on the wonderful news that they are now in position to initiate a graduate program in STS!
SSNet Steering Committee:
- Alison Wylie (Philosophy and Anthropology), SSNet coordinator [Bio]
Alison Wylie is Professor of Philosophy and Anthropology, and Adjunct Professor of Women Studies at the University of Washington. She is a
philosopher of science who works on philosophical issues raised by
archaeological practice and by feminist research in the social sciences:
ideals of objectivity, the role of contextual values in research
practice, and models of evidential reasoning. Her publications include Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology (2002);
edited collections and special issues on Value-free Science? (2007, with
Kincaid and Dupré), Doing Archaeology as a Feminist (Archaeological
Method and Theory 2007, with Conkey), Epistemic Diversity and Dissent (Episteme 2006), and Feminist Science Studies (Hypatia, 2004); as well as
essays that appear in Agnatology (2008), Evaluating Multiple Narratives (Springer 2007), the Sage Handbook of Feminist Research (2007), Theoretical Empiricism (2006), Embedding Ethics (Berg, 2005), and Science and
other Cultures (2003). She is currently working on a monograph, Standpoint
Matters, in Feminist Philosophy of Science.
- Sarah Elwood (Geography) [Bio]
Sarah Elwood is an associate professor in the Department of Geography. Her research focuses on the social and political impacts of geospatial technologies ranging from conventional GIS to collaborative mapping platforms such as GoogleMaps, particularly as these technologies are taken up in activism, social movements, and community-based organizing. In this work, she incorporates qualitative methods, participatory action research, and experiential learning pedagogies. Sarah is currently completing a 5-year collaborative research project with community-based organizations on Chicago’s west side, that considers the sustainability and impacts of their use of GIS in community-controlled redevelopment and neighborhood revitalization efforts.
- Angela Ginorio (Women Studies) [Bio]
Angela B. Ginorio is associate professor in Women Studies, and adjunct associate professor in the Departments of Psychology and American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington-Seattle. Her scholarship focuses on feminist science studies emphasizing the participation of ethnic minorities and women in STEM, access issues in education for Latino/as and first-generation college students, and knowledge claims of victims. She just finished work as P.I. of the Sloan-funded Interdisciplinary Social Science Approaches to the Participation of Ethnic Minorities in STEM.
She is lead author of ¡Sí se puede! Latinas in schools and co-author of the chapter on Latino education in the just released Handbook on Achieving Gender Equity Through Education and contributed to Access Denied: Race, Ethnicity and the Scientific Enterprise. She has published on these topics in Technology and Culture, Educational Leadership, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, and Women’s Studies Quarterly.
She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
- Mott Greene (Earth and Space Sciences) [Bio]
Mott T. Greene is John Magee Professor of Science and Values at
the University of Puget Sound, and Affiliate Professor of Earth and Space
Sciences at the University of Washington. He Is a historian of science (Ph.D., University of Washington, 1978), and was the first graduate of
the UW to receive a MacArthur Award,(in 1983). He has worked principally
in the history of 19th and 20th century geology, geophysics, and
atmospheric sciences, though he has also published on the sciences in
antiquity. He is currently interested in the radical shift away from
single authorship in the sciences, and therefore in the the necessity of
moving away from the biographical model of the history of science. He
is also interested in current issues in evolutionary theory, and the way
these apply to thinking about how science works.
- Phillip Thurtle (CHID and History) [Bio]
Phillip Thurtle is an associate professor in the Comparative History of Ideas program and the History Department at the University of Washington
and an adjunct in Anthropology. He received his PhD in history and the
philosophy of science from Stanford University. He is the author of The
Emergence of Genetic Rationality: Space, Time, and Information in
American Biology 1870-1920 (University of Washington Press, 2008), the
co-author with Robert Mitchell (English, Duke University) and Helen
Burgess (English, University of Maryland) of the interactive DVD-ROM BioFutures: Owning Information and Body Parts (University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2008), and the co-editor with Robert Mitchell of the volumes Data
Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003) and Semiotic Flesh:
Information and the Human Body (University of Washington Press, 2002).
His research focuses on the material culture of information processing,
the affective-phenomenlogical domains of media, the role of information
processing technologies in biomedical research, and theories of novelty
in the life sciences.
- Simon Werrett (History)
- Andrea Woody (Philosophy), Speaker Series coordinator [Bio]
Andrea Woody is Associate Professor of Philosophy as well as Adjunct in the departments of Dance, History, and Women Studies at the University of Washington. She received her bachelor’s degree from Princeton and her doctorate from the department of History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include philosophy of science, history of science, aesthetics, and feminist perspectives in philosophy. She continues to investigate visual representations as part of a larger project examining how pragmatic techniques for manipulating scientific theories, such as model building and alternative forms of representation, are developed and justified by scientific communities. This work incorporates philosophical issues concerning explanation, reduction, and the rationality of theory change in science. She also has a longstanding interest in feminist epistemology as it intersects with philosophy of science. While her primary historical work has involved the early development of quantum chemistry in the 20thc, other historical interests include the chemical pedagogy of William Cullen and Joseph Black in 18th century Scotland, conceptions of the periodic law and Benjamin Brodie’s chemical calculus in the late 19th c, and the inclusion, and exclusion, of women in American science classrooms and professional societies.
Advisory Group:
- Malia Fullerton (Bioethics and Humanities) [Bio]
Stephanie Malia Fullerton, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received a Postgraduate Diploma (M.Sc.) in Human Biology and a DPhil in Human Population Genetics from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
Dr. Fullerton served as a University Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the
Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK, from 1995 to 1998, before
returning to the US to pursue population genetics research focused on
identifying genetic contributions to cardiovascular disease, at Penn State
University, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, at the University of
Chicago, from 1998 to 2002. In 2002, she was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein
National Research Service Award from the National Human Genome Research
Institute to re-train in ethical and social aspects of human genetics at Penn
State University. Her research in this area has focused on the epistemological,
ethical, and historical phenomena underlying contemporary scientists'
understandings of population-level genetic variation and its relation to disease
predisposition and health status. Her broad research interests include
scientific decision-making, the relationship of basic research to clinical
research and practice (especially as it pertains to use of racial and/or ethnic
identification), and research ethics.
- Kelly Fryer-Edwards (Bioethics and Humanities; Public Health Genetics) [Bio]
Kelly Fryer-Edwards, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine and core faculty for the Institute for Public Health Genetics and the Critical Medical Humanities Research Cluster. She received an M.A. in Medical Ethics and a PhD in Philosophy of Education from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her teaching programs run throughout the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) system for medical students, faculty, and graduate students and utilize narratives and story to teach ethics and professionalism. Other program responsibilities include serving as Director of the Ethics and Outreach Core for the NIEHS-funded Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health and also investigator with the Institute for Translational Health Sciences (CTSA) and the NHGRI-funded Center for Genomics and Healthcare Equality. Other research projects focus on effective physician-patient communication and innovative teaching practices. Special interests include community-based research practices, environmental justice, everyday ethics in research practice, feminist and narrative approaches to bioethics, and integrating ethics into training programs, public conversations about science, and public policy.
- Celia Lowe (Anthropology)
