Science Studies Network

SSNet brings together faculty and graduate students at the University of Washington who share an interest in Science, Technology and Society Studies (STSS):

• history and philosophy of science;
• social and cultural studies of science and technology;
• ethics, equity and policy issues in the STEM fields.

We sponsor speakers, colloquia, workshops and conferences, and we maintain a calendar of STSS-related events on the University of Washington campuses and in the region. See About SSNet and the Archive / Podcast / Blog links for the details of for the details of past SSNet programs.

Notices for upcoming events are circulated through the SSNet email list and are available on the SSNet Calendar. To join SSNet and receive email notices please fill in the subscription form at the following link: SSNet Mailing List

STSS News

Biological Futures in a Globalized World

The 20th century and first years of the 21st have been characterized by staggering increases in biological knowledge, and by increasing worldwide use of that knowledge to manipulate and build living systems. The global impacts of these developments on our lives and environments are the focus of Biological Futures in a Globalized World (BFGW), a cluster of projects hosted by the Simpson Center for the Humanities in partnership with the Center for Biological Futures (CBF) at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for two years, 2011-2013. BFGW initiatives for our second year (2012-2013) include: 

• Research Ethics Curriculum Project: See pilot courses in prospect for this year and an overview of last year’s inventory project
• Colloquium Series: As part of the Biological Futures colloquium series, all lectures in our weekly Fall Quarter pilot course Research Ethics Exposed! are open to the community
• Summer Research Consortium (read about our 2012 Fellows);

For more details about BFGW, check http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/biofutures1011.html or http://tiny.cc/biological-futures

STSS Speakers and Discussion Groups - UW 2011-2012

A great many STSS visitors come to the UW campus each year, and a number of discussion groups meet regularly, 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 us the information so we can post the date and details on our calendar, or send a notice directly to the SSNet email list:

SSNet events drop-box
SSNet contact email: ssnet@uw.edu
SSNet distribution list: ssnet_list@uw.edu

SSNet Calendar

Philosophy of Science Discussion Group

The UW Philosophy of Science Group continues its successful bi-weekly meetings this year. Its aim is to support faculty and graduate student research through a mix of readings-based meetings and discussions of work in progress by faculty and graduate students. All interested faculty and graduate students are welcome to join us! Discussion group meetings are scheduled for Wednesdays at 3:30 in Savery 359, three or four times each quarter. Topics and readings are available on the PhilSci Reading Group GoPost:

https://catalyst.uw.edu/gopost/board/aw26/26063/
To receive regular email notices of Philosophy of Science meetings, please contact:

• Andrea Woody (awoody@uw.edu) - Fall quarter
• Alison Wylie (aw26@uw.edu) - Winter quarter
• John Manchak (manchak@uw.edu) - Spring quarter

or check the SSNet calendar for upcoming meetings.

Tuesday Colloquium in History of Science and STS

Please join us every Tuesday from 12:30 - 1:30 pm in Smith 306 for the Tuesday Colloquium in History of Science and STS. The colloquium is an opportunity for scholars in the field to share their work or works-in-progress with their peers in an informal setting. The topics vary significantly, but all fall within the broader purview of science studies. If you're interested in sharing your work, either this quarter or sometime during the year, please contact Antony Adler (antony.adler@gmail.com) or Al Miller (milleralb@gmail.com).

 

FOSEP: Forum on Science, Ethics, and Policy

FOSEP is a multidisciplinary organization of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows hosted by the Graduate School that provides a unique opportunity for dialogue about the impact of science in our world. FOSEP continues to be an exciting and rewarding way of developing leadership skills for us, its graduate student and postdoctoral members. FOSEP also organizes events about the intersection of science and society for other members of the UW and greater Seattle community.

• For news and current events: http://seattle.fosep.org/

 

Annual Meeting of the Columbia History of Science Group

The Columbia History of Science Group meets every spring at the Friday Harbor Laboratories in the San Juan Islands of Washington. This year is their 30th anniversary: March 9-12, 2012. Registration deadline is February 12 - form can be downloaded from link below. CHSG is a regional history of science organization that offers a warm, collegial environment to present papers, meet other science studies scholars, and enjoy the comforts and atmosphere of the University of Washington’s marine biological laboratories.

• For more details: https://sites.google.com/site/columbiahistoryofsciencegroup/

Courses and Curriculum in Science, Technology and Society Studies

A founding goal of SSNet is to coordinate and build upon the rich array of courses and programs in science, technology and society studies (STSS) currently offered on all three UW campuses. See the Curriculum Project link for background of these initiatives. Our priority this year is to finalize plans for a graduate Certificate in STSS, and to work with the Biological Futures project developing an inventory of resources available for training in research ethics/research integrity. We also maintain a listing of STSS-relevant courses currently offered at UW. If you're teaching graduate or undergraduate courses in this area and would like to get the word out, please send us a brief description of your current and upcoming courses: click here to add your course to our list.

• For a current listing of STSS-relevant courses: On-line Directory of STSS Courses.
• For program details follow these links:
  History and Philosophy of Science - Major (UW Seattle) http://depts.washington.edu/hps/
  Science, Technology and Society - Major (UW Bothell)
  http://www.uwb.edu/sciencetechsociety
  Comparative History of Ideas - Major (UW Seattle)
  http://depts.washington.edu/chid/

Northwest STSS Consortium and Summer Institute

There is tremendous strength in STSS 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. We maintain a NW Regional STSS Calendar – so information about all STSS events at universities and colleges in the region is accessible in one place.

• If you’re sponsoring an event – speaker series, conference, workshop – send us the details and we’ll post them on our calendar: submit your event.    
• For current and upcoming events:  NW Regional STSS Calendar

SSNet Coordinators:

• Alison Wylie (Philosophy and Anthropology): aw26@uw.edu
• Simon Werrett (History): werrett@u.washington.edu
• Leah Ceccarelli
  Leah Ceccarelli, Associate Professor, is a rhetorical critic and theorist. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary and public discourse about science. She also explores metacritical issues surrounding rhetorical inquiry as a mode of research. She is the recipient of several research awards, including the Rhetoric Society of America's book award and the National Communication Association's Golden Anniversary Monograph award. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American Public Address, Public Debate, Rhetorical Criticism, Classical Rhetoric, and Rhetoric of Science. She is an affiliated faculty member with the Institute for Public Health Genetics and the Ph.D. Program in Theory and Criticism. She serves on the editorial boards of The Quarterly Journal of Speech and Rhetoric & Public Affairs.
  Web page: http://www.com.washington.edu/faculty/ceccarelli.html
  (Communication): cecc@u.washington.edu
  

SSNet Steering Committee:

• Sareeta Amrute
  Sareeta Amrute is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the UW. She is currently writing a book on Indian IT workers in Germany called 'Going for Foreign', which discusses how new kinds of technological labor are affected by migration and circulating notions of race. Her ongoing research interests look at how technologies and human subjects 'meet' in spaces of contemporary capitalism. Web page: http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/people/faculty/SAmrute.php
  (Anthropology, UW-Seattle): amrutes@u.washington.edu
• Kelly Edwards (Bioethics and Humanities, UW-Seattle): edwards@u.washington.edu
• Sarah Elwood
  Sarah Elwood is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. Her research examines the social significance of spatial technologies, particularly their role in the practices and and politics of local activism, community organizing, and other modes of civic engagement. Her current research focuses on volunteered geographic information, new spatial media, and the geoweb, considering the social and political implications of interactive web-based technologies that enabling collection, compilation, mapping, and dissemination of spatial data by vast numbers of people. With colleagues at UC-Santa Barbara and Ohio State University, she is studying volunteered geographic information, examining their content and characteristics, methodologies for working with these data, and the social and political practices in which they are deployed. With Katharyne Mitchell at the University of Washington, she is conducting a 3-year project examining the role that interactive geovisualization technologies can play in fostering collaborative learning, critical thinking and civic engagement among young teens.
  Web page: http://faculty.washington.edu/selwood/
  (Geography, UW-Seattle): selwood@u.washington.edu
  
• Stephanie [Malia] Fullerton
  Stephanie Malia Fullerton is Associate Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington in Seattle. She received a D.Phil. in Human Population Genetics from the University of Oxford and later re-trained in Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of genetic research with a fellowship from the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. Her work explores researcher and participant perspectives on data-sharing, secondary use, and result return in the context of contemporary genomic research. She holds adjunct positions in the UW Departments of Genome Sciences and Epidemiology, and is an affiliate investigator with the Public Health Sciences division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
  Web page: http://depts.washington.edu/bhdept/facres/mf_bio.htm
  (Bioethics and Humanities, UW-Seattle): mfllrtn@u.washington.edu
• Angela Ginorio (Women Studies, UW-Seattle): ginorio@u.washington.edu
• Mott Greene (Earth and Space Sciences, UW-Seattle; University of Puget Sound): mgreene@u.washington.edu // greene@pugetsound.edu
• Celia Lowe (Anthropology, UW-Seattle): lowe@u.washington.edu
• Lynn Hankinson Nelson (Philosophy, UW-Seattle): lynnhank@u.washington.edu
• Gwen Ottinger
  Gwen Ottinger is assistant professor in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW-Bothell and coordinator of the undergraduate major in Science, Technology, and Society. She received her Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley. Ottinger’s research examines the construction of expertise in environmental justice controversies, especially how scientific studies produced by ordinary citizens can unsettle—or not—credentialed scientists’ claims to technical authority. She is co-editor of Technoscience and Environmental Justice: Expert Cultures in a Grassroots Movement (MIT Press 2011) and author of Refining Expertise: How Responsible Engineers Subvert Environmental Justice Challenges (forthcoming from NYU Press).
  Web page: http://www.uwb.edu/ias/about/faculty-staff/gwenottinger
  (Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW-Bothell): ottinger@uw.edu
• Margaret Pugh O'Mara
  Margaret O’Mara is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington. She is a historian of the modern United States whose work examines technology policy, high-tech regional development, and economic globalization since 1945. She is the author of Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley (Princeton, 2005), which explored how Silicon Valley came to be, why other regions did not become Silicon Valley, and what the Cold War had to do with it. Her current research explores neoliberal economic policy, politics, and urban change in the U.S. and Asia since the early 1970s. She previously taught at Stanford University. O’Mara received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. from Northwestern. From 1993 to 1997 she was on the policy staff of President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, focusing on urban economic development, health care, and welfare reform. Web page: http://faculty.washington.edu/momara
  (History, UW-Seattle): momara@uw.edu
• Woody Sullivan
  Professor Woody Sullivan's interests are in the history of science, astrobiology (life in a cosmic context), and ways in which astronomy relates to the broader culture.
  He wrote Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy (2009), and in 2012 was awarded, for his career's work in history of science, the Leroy Doggett Prize of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society. He is presently working on a biography of the 18th c. astronomer William Herschel.
  He is one of the leaders of the UW's interdisciplinary graduate program in Astrobiology, and co-edited the first graduate-level textbook in Astrobiology, Planets and Life (2007).
  Sundials are a special and peculiar passion. He has designed the “MarsDial”, part of the rovers currently on Mars, as well as public sundials on this planet (e.g., on the UW Physics/Astronomy Building). He aims to make the Seattle region the sundial capital of North America.
  Web page: http://depts.washington.edu/astrobio/people/faculty/sullivanw.html
  (Astronomy, UW-Seattle): woody@astro.washington.edu
• Phillip Thurtle
  Phillip Thurtle is the Director of the Comparative History of Ideas program, Associate Professor of History, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. 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 an 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 role of information processing technologies in biomedical research, the affective-phenomenlogical domains of media, and theories of novelty in the life sciences.
  Web page: http://depts.washington.edu/chid/user/phillip-thurtle
  (CHID and History, UW-Seattle): thurtle@u.washington.edu
• Matthew Weinstein (Education, UW-Tacoma): mattheww@u.washington.edu
• Andrea Woody
  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 20th century, 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 century, and the inclusion, and exclusion, of women in American science classrooms and professional societies
  Web page: http://www.phil.washington.edu/people_woody.htm
  (Philosophy, UW-Seattle): awoody@u.washington.edu

SSNet Calendar

Check back in September for Fall events!