On January 10, 2025, over 80 faculty leaders from three campuses and the School of Medicine gathered at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture to launch Society + Technology at UW.
The kickoff began with remarks from university leadership. UW President Ana Mari Cauce referenced the 2022 Task Force chaired by Ryan Calo, which highlighted the vast scope of UW’s expertise in technology and society.
“[T]his is an area where the University of Washington has the brainpower [and] the people power,” said Cauce.
Provost Tricia R. Serio emphasized the university’s commitment to the commons—the public good—and underscored the importance of supporting the ongoing work between the centers, programs, and labs across UW’s regional campuses.
The initiative’s faculty lead is School of Law Professor Ryan Calo, who emceed the event. The speaker line-up began with Communication Professor Leah Ceccarelli, who directs the Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STSS) Graduate Certificate Program and has been involved in Society + Technology at UW since its inception.
The event also featured speakers from the initiative’s growing network of faculty and staff—spanning more than 30 centers and 85 researchers—who shared insights on technology and research topics ranging from democracy, ethics, equity, historical context, artificial intelligence, and accessibility.
Society + Technology at UW has several community programs, including the First Monday STSS Reading Group, which focuses on the science, technology, and society studies intellectual community, a salon series, which began with events on bioethics and genetics, and pop-up working groups. The latest working group series, on science, society, and justice, is hosted by Tim Brown, an assistant professor in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the School of Medicine.
Planning for future events in Tacoma, Seattle, and Bothell is underway. Already on the calendar is a salon titled Technology for the People, scheduled for Monday, April 14, 2025 from 6 pm – 8 pm, co-hosted with the Department of Communication’s Center for Journalism, Media, and Democracy.
On September 3, Society + Technology at UW will co-host a UW gathering during the annual conference for the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) association, which will be in Seattle in early September. Several affiliates are on the 4S conference planning leadership team.
To expand the reach of UW’s expertise, Society + Technology at UW plans to launch an external affiliates program for future community and industry partners in coming months.
Society + Technology at UW has been featured in articles from the Information School and GeekWire. In an interview with Geekwire writer Kurt Schlosser, Monika Sengul-Jones, Society + Technology at UW’s Director of Strategy and Operations, which is hosted in the UW Tech Policy Lab, explained the significance of the cross-disciplinary network’s focus.
“We put society first, very intentionally, in the name of the initiative, and in the idea that society makes technology,” Sengul-Jones said. “It’s not that tech just comes from nowhere and then suddenly impacts society. We all make it. We are extensions of the tools that we create.”