July, 2016

Awards

HSD PhD student Monamie Bhadra received the 2016 Mullins Award from the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) for “an outstanding piece of scholarship by a graduate student.” 4S evaluated many entries based on contribution to the STS field, depth of research, writing quality and ethical/political relevance of the piece. On why Bhadra’s paper, “Nation-Building Civic Epistemologies in India through Nuclear Politics,” won the $1000 prize, 4S noted, “As a well-researched and well-written piece it demonstrates the dynamic formation and contestation of civic epistemologies in India.”

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Congratulations to new PhDs

Three students in the school’s Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology program successfully defended their doctoral theses in July.

Jathan Sadowski has accepted a position as Visiting Lecturer in Ethics of Technology at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands).

Dissertation Title: Selling Smartness: Visions and Politics of the Smart City

Abstract: There is much at stake with the smart city. This urban governance movement is predicated on infusing information-and-communication technology into nearly all aspects of the built environment, while at the same time transforming how cities are planned and managed. The smart city movement is global in scale with initiatives being rolled out all over the planet, driven by proponents with deep pockets of wealth and influence, and a lucrative opportunity with market projections in the billions or trillions of dollars (over the next five to ten years). However, the smart city label can be nebulous and amorphous, seemingly subsuming unrelated technologies, practices, and policies as necessary. Yet, even with this ambiguity, or perhaps because of it, the smart city vision is still able to colonize urban landscapes and capture the political imaginations of decision makers. In order to know just what the smart city entails I work to bring analytic clarity to the actions, visions, and values of this movement.

The arc of this project, in short, moves from diving into the “smart city” discourses; to picking apart the ideologies at its heart; to engaging with the dual logics—control and accumulation—that drive the smart city; and finally to imagining what an alternative techno-politics might look like and how we might achieve it. My goal is that by analyzing the techno-politics of the smart city we will be better equipped to understand these urban transformations—what logics drive them, what they herald, and what our role should be in how they develop.

Recent and forthcoming publications:

– Selin C, Rawlings KC, de Ridder-Vignone K, Sadowski J, Allende CA, Gano G, Davies S, and Guston DH. (Forthcoming). “Experiments in Engagement: Designing Public Engagement with Science and Technology for Capacity Building.” Public Understanding of Science. DOI: 10.1177/0963662515620970

– Halpern MK, Sadowski J, Eschrich J, Finn E, and Guston DH. (Forthcoming). “Stitching Together Creativity and Responsibility: Interpreting Frankenstein Across Disciplines.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. DOI: 10.1177/0270467616646637 [Part of special issue: “Science and Science Fiction”]

– Sadowski J and Guston DH. (2016). “’You Caught Me Off Guard’: Probing the Futures of Complex Engineered Nanomaterials.” Journal of Nanoparticle Research 18 (7): 208. [Part of special issue: “Anticipatory Governance of Complex Engineered Nanomaterials”]

 

 

 

Denise Baker will be joining Missouri University of Science and Technology this fall as an assistant professor in their university-wide cluster on “Smart Living”, building on her work here in the IGERT Alliance for Person-Centered Accessible Technologies. Her home will be in the Psychology Department, but she will be working with a variety of engineering teams to build integrative research projects.

Dissertation Title: Self “sensor”ship: An interdisciplinary investigation of the persuasiveness, social implications, and ethical design of self-sensoring prescriptive applications

Abstract: This dissertation research investigates the social implications of computing artifacts that make use of sensor driven self-quantification to implicitly or explicitly direct user behaviors. These technologies are referred to here as self-sensoring prescriptive applications (SSPA’s). This genre of technological application has a strong Presence in healthcare as a means to monitor health, modify behavior, improve health outcomes, and reduce medical costs. However, the commercial sector is quickly adopting SSPA’s as a means to monitor and/or modify consumer behaviors as well. This growing industry consists of primarily wearable sensors that monitor characteristics such as movement, heartrate, and respiration; ostensibly to guide the users to better or more informed choices about their physical fitness. However, applications that claim to use biosensor data to assist in mood maintenance and control are entering the market, and applications to aid in decision making about consumer products are on the horizon as well. Interestingly, there is little existing research that investigates the direct impact biosensor data have on decision making, nor on the risks, benefits, or regulation of such technologies. The research presented here is inspired by a number of separate but related gaps in existing literature about the social implications of SSPA’s. First, how SSPA’s impact individual and group decision making and attitude formation within non-medical-care domains (e.g. will a message about what product to buy be more persuasive if it claims to have based the recommendation on biometric information?). Second, how the design and designers of SSPA’s shape behaviors and third, how these factors should be considered in future design and public policy decisions.

 

 

Michael Burnam Fink

Dissertation Title: Making Better Students: ADHD in Higher Education and the Biopolitics of Stimulant Mediation

Abstract: According to my 2016 survey of ASU undergraduate students, 33% have used stimulant medications (e.g. Adderall or Ritalin) without a prescription to study. I view this practice as a step towards cognitive enhancement, which is the deliberate application of biotechnology to radically alter the human condition. From a foresight perspective, the ability to actively improve human beings, to take our evolutionary destiny into our own hands, may be a turning point on par with agriculture or the use of fossil fuels. The existential risks, however, may be greater than the benefits—and many of the most radical technologies have made little documented progress.

I turn to an actual example where people are trying to make themselves marginally better at academic tasks, as a guide to how future transformative development in human enhancement may be incorporated into everyday practice. This project examines the history and context that led to the widespread use of stimulant medication on college campuses. I describe how Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), for which stimulant medication is prescribed and diverted, governs students, negotiates relationships between parents and school authorities, and manages anxieties resulting from a competitive neoliberal educational system. I extend this archeology of ADHD through the actions and ethical beliefs of college students, and the bioethical arguments for and against human enhancement. Through this work, I open a new space for an expanded role for universities as institutions capable of creating experimental communities supporting ethical cognitive enhancement.

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SFIS welcomes new faculty members

Laura Hosman, Assistant Professor, shared with The Polytechnic School of the Ira A Fulton Schools of Engineering

 

 

 

Thad Miller, Assistant Professor, shared with The Polytechnic School of the Ira A Fulton Schools of Engineering

 

 

 

Darshan Karwat, Assistant Professor, shared with The Polytechnic School of the Ira A Fulton Schools of Engineering (Jan 1 start)

 

 

 

Britt Crow-Miller, Assistant Professor

 

 

 

 

Robert Cook-Deegan, Professor and Director of Collaboratory for Health Research (July 1 start)

 

 

 

Sasha Barab, Professor, shared with Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College

 

 

 

 

Lauren Withycombe-Keeler, Visiting Assistant Professor

 

 

 

 

Dehlia Hannah, Visiting Assistant Professor (fall 2016)

 

 

 

 

Denisa Kera, Visiting Assistant Professor (spring 2017)

 

 

 

 

Mahmud Farooque, Clinical Associate Professor

 

 

 

 

Heather Ross, Clinical Assistant Professor, shared with the College of Nursing and Health Innovation and the Global Security Initiative

 

 

 

Deborah Strumsky, Assistant Research Professor, shared with the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems

 

 

 

Visiting

Visiting scholar Steven Flipse is assistant professor in Science Communication in Innovation at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He has been involved with the Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) program coordinated by Erik Fisher since 2009. During his stay at ASU, he will work with SFIS to advance his research and develop further collaborations.

 

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Out and About

Associate Professor Diana Bowman gave a public lecture at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia on the topic of “Dealing with Deficiencies: How the European Union and United States Continue to Diverge on Emerging Technology Policy.”

 

 

Professor of Practice Gregg Zachary spoke about “the next frontier in digital journalism: semi-automated local news networks, directed by humans, for public good and commercial gain. The talk was delivered on July 8 at the Association for Alternative Newsmedia in Austin, TX.

 

 

Professor of Practice Darlene Cavalier hosted an online Q&A on Reddit on July 19, during which she fielded questions about citizen science and how interested parties could get involved.

 

 

 

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 Renowned Conservation Biologist’s Swan Song

SFIS affiliate Andrew Smith, President’s Professor and Parents Association Professor in the School of Life Sciences, was profiled in this ASU News article. This will the last year of Smith’s illustrious career. He initiated the first Conservation Biology degree program in the nation at ASU, co-created the system used to capture data for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and received multiple awards – including the coveted Aldo Leopold Award from the American Society of Mammalogists – for his monumental work establishing the pika as a keystone species in vulnerable mountainous regions of North America and Asia. SFIS Post-doc Jesse Senko, a former TA for Smith, said, “Perhaps his greatest gift is his ability to show his students how much he cares.”

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HSD student Miles Brundage will be an Artificial Intelligence Policy Research Fellow at the Strategic AI Research Center at Oxford University. He is also now serving on an IEEE committee to develop standards for Artificial Intelligence, to make general recommendations to policy-makers, practitioners, etc., and to foster wider dialogue of key issues.