New Community Programs include Pop-Up Working Groups and a Salon Series

Society + Technology at UW is now offering four types of programming to foster and deepen cross-campus and cross-disciplinary connections around society and technology.

First Monday STSS Reading Group

First Monday STSS is a participant-led monthly online reading group, launched and co-facilitated by Monika Sengul-Jones and Leah Ceccarelli (Communication). The goal of the reading group is to foster and deepen the science and technology studies (STS) intellectual community of faculty, students, and staff across the UW’s campuses and the School of Medicine, many of whom are involved in UW’s Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STSS) interdisciplinary graduate certificate program. Anyone at the UW who is STS-curious is welcome to join the reading group. Learn more

Pop-Up Working Groups

Pop-Up Working Groups are thematic problem-solving events proposed and hosted by one or several of the S+T Affiliate network members. Once proposed, S+T supports the host(s) to facilitate a 55-minute online conversation about a question or problem to brainstorm solutions. In 2024, the first Pop-Up Working Group evolved out of a reading group conversation and addressed science, technology, and society studies approaches to AI at UW. Have a question or problem you’d like to examine with the S+T network of Affiliates? Propose a Pop-Up Working Group session by emailing mmjones@uw.edu

Salons

Salons are an online conversation series to elevate the S+T’s cross-campus, cross-disciplinary perspectives on emerging technologies. Each Salon is a one-hour and fifteen-minute conversation between 3-5 Affiliates from the S+T network, with a moderator. The purpose is to recognize and honor live, arranged encounters as a meeting of the minds, to give greater visibility to the S+T network, and to cultivate intellectual conditions for deeper collaborations. Would you like to present your work in a Salon? Email mmjones@uw.edu. Learn about upcoming Salons on the S+T Calendar

Interviews

Conversations with Society + Technology is a podcasted interview series about emerging technologies and their societal impact, featuring in-depth conversations with the S+T Affiliate community. Is there someone you’d like to hear from? Email mmjones@uw.edu to recommend interviewees. Access the episodes

Register now for the Society + Technology at UW Inaugural Convening on Jan. 10, 2025

We’re thrilled to share that Society + Technology at UW is hosting an Inaugural Convening on Friday, January 10, 2025 to bring together the incredible, and growing, S+T community from the UW’s three campuses working at the intersection of society and technology.

The event will open with remarks from President Ana Mari Cauce and Provost Tricia Serio, as our initiative is an outgrowth of the 2021-22 President and Provost Task Force on Technology and Society, and feature lightning talks, a panel discussion, opportunities to meet colleagues, and a light fare reception.

Space is limited, RSVP at your earliest convenience to join us on Friday, Jan. 10 at the Center for Urban Horticulture, in the UW’s Botanic Gardens, from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM. Learn more about the program, including the speakers and panelists.

The event is co-sponsored by the UW Tech Policy Lab with support from the Office of the Provost.

University of Washington launches Society + Technology with focus on AI and emerging technologies

Hosted in the Tech Policy Lab, the program is the outcome of the 2022 Presidential Task Force on Technology & Society

Society + Technology at the University of Washington is a new program that uplifts an emergent network of faculty, students, researchers, staff, and programs across all of the UW’s three campuses (Bothell, Seattle, and Tacoma) and the School of Medicine around the social, societal, and justice aspects of technology. The program’s focus this spring is research, teaching, and learning around emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).

Hosted at the UW Tech Policy Lab, Society + Technology is an outcome of the 2022 UW Technology and Society Task Force research report, Leading the Way in Addressing the Societal Impacts of Emerging Technology, (PDF) charged by the President and the Office of the Provost. The report emphasized the responsibility of the University of Washington to provide leadership as state, federal, and international policymakers grapple with technological changes.

Given the tremendous expertise and wisdom within the University, Society + Technology seeks to facilitate new pathways for cutting-edge research and generative collaborations to happen, creating openings for new questions and research meaningful for our times and futures to unfold.

Society + Technology co-hosts and co-sponsors free events and convenings, such as the interdisciplinary panel about AI, Art, and Copyright on May 2 with the Simpson Center for the Humanities, moderated by Melanie Walsh (Information School).

On May 8, Society + Technology hosts “The Model Hacker? The Intersection of AI and Security Research,” a conversation with legal and computer science experts and technology activists co-organized with the Tech Policy Lab and leading online civil rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the evolution of research on AI, security, and hacking–and potential impacts on society, policy, and human flourishing.

Stay tuned for even more programming and resources in the months to come.

Details about Society + Technology events are available on the program’s Trumba calendar and via the program’s listserv.

Join the listserv

Interested in partnering? Email program manager Monika Sengul-Jones at mmjones@uw.edu

New Society + Technology Program Manager hosted in Tech Policy Lab

The UW Tech Policy Lab is pleased to welcome Monika Sengul-Jones, PhD (she/her, they/them), as Program Manager for a new initiative to foster cross-campus collaboration at the intersection of society and technology.

Innovations in emerging technologies, from generative AI to quantum computing, continue to garner public attention about their impacts on society. The new initiative aims to address concerns related to technology’s social, societal, and justice aspects by bolstering research, teaching, and learning at the University of Washington across three campuses and the School of Medicine.

The effort builds upon a 2022 UW Technology and Society Task Force research report, titled “Leading the Way in Addressing the Societal Impacts of Emerging Technology,” which emphasized the responsibility of the University of Washington to provide leadership as state, federal, and international policymakers grapple with technological changes.

The task force comprised of eight faculty members from three campuses and the School of Medicine, and Tech Policy Lab staff member Anna Swan, a qualitative researcher with a doctorate in communication.

Sengul-Jones will be collaborating closely with the co-founder of the Tech Policy Lab and the Center for an Informed Public, Ryan Calo, a School of Law and Information School professor, as well as Leah Ceccarelli, director of the Science, Technology, & Society Studies graduate certificate program and professor in the Department of Communication.

A lecturer in media, communication, and literary arts at the University of Washington Bothell, Sengul-Jones has also served as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Communication. She earned her doctorate from UC San Diego in Communication and Science Studies in 2020, receiving the Dean’s Fellowship Prize for Humanist Studies for research on gender and computing.

You can reach Sengul-Jones at mmjones@uw.edu.