Significant Research Areas
Faculty Research and Teaching Clusters
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General ItemAshley Shew
Ashley Shew participates in the STS PhD program, the Medicine & Society minor, the Disability Studies minor, the Bioethics graduate certificate, and Integrative Graduate Education Program on Regenerative Medicine as an associate professor. Her main areas of interest are philosophy of technology, emerging technologies, animal studies, bioethics and disability studies.
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General ItemFabian Prieto-Nañez
Fabian Prieto-Nañez's research and teaching focuses on the history of technologies in the Global South, particularly through the lens of media devices and infrastructures. His dissertation focused on ideas of piracy, informality and illegality in the use of early satellite dishes in the Caribbean, particularly in Colombia. He also had worked on histories of computing in Latin America.
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General ItemJanet Abbate
Janet Abbate's work focuses on the history, culture, and policy issues of the internet and computing. Her book Inventing the Internet has become the standard reference on the history of the Internet. Recoding Gender: Women’s Changing Participation in Computing explores how gender has shaped computing and suggests how the experiences of female pioneers can inform current efforts to broaden participation in science and technology.
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General ItemLee Vinsel
Lee Vinsel studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His current work focuses on the production of Peoples & Things, a podcast featuring interviews with the world’s leading figures in the empirical study of technology and society, and his book project, A Good History of $#%@ Jobs, which examines why so many households in the United States can barely make ends meet.
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General ItemMatthew Wisnioski
Matthew Wisnioski studies the interplay between expertise and imagination in science, technology, and innovation. Through historical and ethnographic research, his work has explored the relationship between engineering activism in the 1960s and broad transformations in the meaning of technology; how scientists, engineers, and designers collaborate; and how “innovation” came to shape American life over the 20th and 21st centuries. An advocate for transdisciplinary critical participation, he has collaborated in a multiyear initiative to reimagine and remake engineering education at Virginia Tech and developed innovative STS courses that aim to cultivate reflective practitioners. He is currently exploring the role of multimedia in the rise of “STEM” education via a history of The Magic School Bus.
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General ItemSonja D. Schmid
Sonja Schmid's research includes examining the interface of national energy policies, technological choices, and nonproliferation concerns. Her most recent NSF-supported research project examined the challenges of globalizing nuclear emergency response. She teaches courses in social studies of technology, science and technology policy, socio-cultural studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
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General ItemAshley Shew
Ashley Shew participates in the STS PhD program, the Medicine & Society minor, the Disability Studies minor, the Bioethics graduate certificate, and Integrative Graduate Education Program on Regenerative Medicine as an associate professor. Her main areas of interest are philosophy of technology, emerging technologies, animal studies, bioethics and disability studies.
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General ItemChristine Labuski
Christine Labuski's research and teaching are organized around two primary areas of inquiry: sexualities and how sexualities become medicalized, and; gender and climate/environmental justice, with an emphasis on feminist energy systems, queer ecologies, and the gender politics of fossil fuel boomtowns.
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General ItemCora Olson
Cora Olson's research has two key strands: the intertwined construction of biomedical knowledge and morality and critical STS pedagogical practices. She is currently in the process of transitioning out of COVID related research back into sports related research within the first strand. In the second strand, she is working on projects related to how critical STS is practiced at Virginia Tech.
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General ItemJohn Aggrey
John K. Aggrey studies risk and infectious diseases, focusing on rural and urban populations in Africa. He has studied Ebola and COVID-19, most recently focusing on how communities construct a sense of risk and how social and political contexts shape emerging infectious diseases. John also investigates the vital role of human relationships in epidemic preparedness, challenging conventional models that overly rely on technological and logistical solutions.
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General ItemPhilip R. Olson
Philip Olsen's work engages with bioethics and body studies, death studies, women’s and gender studies, and social epistemology. He is currently working on writing projects related to public deathcare policy and the environment. He has worked with graduate students on a variety of topics, including death studies and material culture, cultural studies of diamonds, technology and religion, electronic medical records, cultural and political theory, healthcare ethics, epistemology, and several other topics.
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General ItemRebecca J. Hester
Rebecca Hester's research examines the social, political, and scientific implications of preempting, preventing, and eradicating "biological danger." She is currently working on a book project that asks what and who constitutes biological danger in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The answer she comes up with has less to do with commonly identified threats-viruses, laboratory leaks, and spillover events- and more to do with the "pathogenic entanglements" between our scientific understandings of infectious disease, inflammatory environments, and long-standing social inequities.
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General ItemSaul Halfon
Saul Halfon works in the political sociology of science and technology, with a focus on the technical and sense-making practices of policy institutions, conceptions and mechanisms of public engagement, and practices of interdisciplinarity. His primary research emphasizes controversial science and technology issues, and the relations between authoritative and silenced voices in such disputes, leading to projects on international population policy, international GM food controversies, controversies over depleted uranium, and discursive practices in security and development policies. His current project focuses on the regulation of food risk and danger at the USDA.
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General ItemBarbara L. Allen
Barbara Allen’s research focuses on environmental justice, namely, participatory projects that engage the public in shaping environmental health science. She works with local communities in heavily polluted industrial regions in France and the U.S. to produce rigorous environmental health data that can assist residents in their advocacy for policy and regulatory change. In 2022, Professor Allen completed a decade-long public health project in France’s largest industrial region near the port of Marseille.
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General ItemChristine Labuski
Christine Labuski's research and teaching are organized around two primary areas of inquiry: sexualities and how sexualities become medicalized, and; gender and climate/environmental justice, with an emphasis on feminist energy systems, queer ecologies, and the gender politics of fossil fuel boomtowns.
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General ItemDaniel Breslau
131 Lane Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, 540-231-8472 | dbreslau@vt.edu
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General ItemSonja D. Schmid
Sonja Schmid's research includes examining the interface of national energy policies, technological choices, and nonproliferation concerns. Her most recent NSF-supported research project examined the challenges of globalizing nuclear emergency response. She teaches courses in social studies of technology, science and technology policy, socio-cultural studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
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General ItemDaniel Breslau
131 Lane Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, 540-231-8472 | dbreslau@vt.edu
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General ItemFabian Prieto-Nañez
Fabian Prieto-Nañez's research and teaching focuses on the history of technologies in the Global South, particularly through the lens of media devices and infrastructures. His dissertation focused on ideas of piracy, informality and illegality in the use of early satellite dishes in the Caribbean, particularly in Colombia. He also had worked on histories of computing in Latin America.
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General ItemLee Vinsel
Lee Vinsel studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His current work focuses on the production of Peoples & Things, a podcast featuring interviews with the world’s leading figures in the empirical study of technology and society, and his book project, A Good History of $#%@ Jobs, which examines why so many households in the United States can barely make ends meet.
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General ItemSaul Halfon
Saul Halfon works in the political sociology of science and technology, with a focus on the technical and sense-making practices of policy institutions, conceptions and mechanisms of public engagement, and practices of interdisciplinarity. His primary research emphasizes controversial science and technology issues, and the relations between authoritative and silenced voices in such disputes, leading to projects on international population policy, international GM food controversies, controversies over depleted uranium, and discursive practices in security and development policies. His current project focuses on the regulation of food risk and danger at the USDA.
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General ItemSonja D. Schmid
Sonja Schmid's research includes examining the interface of national energy policies, technological choices, and nonproliferation concerns. Her most recent NSF-supported research project examined the challenges of globalizing nuclear emergency response. She teaches courses in social studies of technology, science and technology policy, socio-cultural studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
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General ItemFabian Prieto-Nañez
Fabian Prieto-Nañez's research and teaching focuses on the history of technologies in the Global South, particularly through the lens of media devices and infrastructures. His dissertation focused on ideas of piracy, informality and illegality in the use of early satellite dishes in the Caribbean, particularly in Colombia. He also had worked on histories of computing in Latin America.
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General ItemFernanda R. Rosa
Fernanda R. Rosa is currently working on her second book project whose narrative builds a bridge between technical debates on internet interconnection infrastructure and social justice to examine internet governance and design from the standpoint of the global South. Using an original method defined as code ethnography, and a transdisciplinary lens founded on science and technologies studies, decolonial and feminist studies, the book sheds light on the information circulation infrastructure of the internet with a design justice and policy approach. It situates the reader in indigenous and Latin American contexts to problematize the inequalities in the access to internet infrastructure and the values embedded in information circulation infrastructure of the internet. Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and Tseltal and Zapoteco sovereign territories are the fieldwork sites of this study.
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General ItemJanet Abbate
Janet Abbate's work focuses on the history, culture, and policy issues of the internet and computing. Her book Inventing the Internet has become the standard reference on the history of the Internet. Recoding Gender: Women’s Changing Participation in Computing explores how gender has shaped computing and suggests how the experiences of female pioneers can inform current efforts to broaden participation in science and technology.
-
General ItemRebecca J. Hester
Rebecca Hester's research examines the social, political, and scientific implications of preempting, preventing, and eradicating "biological danger." She is currently working on a book project that asks what and who constitutes biological danger in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The answer she comes up with has less to do with commonly identified threats-viruses, laboratory leaks, and spillover events- and more to do with the "pathogenic entanglements" between our scientific understandings of infectious disease, inflammatory environments, and long-standing social inequities.
-
General ItemBarbara L. Allen
Barbara Allen’s research focuses on environmental justice, namely, participatory projects that engage the public in shaping environmental health science. She works with local communities in heavily polluted industrial regions in France and the U.S. to produce rigorous environmental health data that can assist residents in their advocacy for policy and regulatory change. In 2022, Professor Allen completed a decade-long public health project in France’s largest industrial region near the port of Marseille.
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General ItemChristine Labuski
Christine Labuski's research and teaching are organized around two primary areas of inquiry: sexualities and how sexualities become medicalized, and; gender and climate/environmental justice, with an emphasis on feminist energy systems, queer ecologies, and the gender politics of fossil fuel boomtowns.
-
General ItemFernanda R. Rosa
Fernanda R. Rosa is currently working on her second book project whose narrative builds a bridge between technical debates on internet interconnection infrastructure and social justice to examine internet governance and design from the standpoint of the global South. Using an original method defined as code ethnography, and a transdisciplinary lens founded on science and technologies studies, decolonial and feminist studies, the book sheds light on the information circulation infrastructure of the internet with a design justice and policy approach. It situates the reader in indigenous and Latin American contexts to problematize the inequalities in the access to internet infrastructure and the values embedded in information circulation infrastructure of the internet. Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and Tseltal and Zapoteco sovereign territories are the fieldwork sites of this study.
-
General ItemRebecca J. Hester
Rebecca Hester's research examines the social, political, and scientific implications of preempting, preventing, and eradicating "biological danger." She is currently working on a book project that asks what and who constitutes biological danger in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The answer she comes up with has less to do with commonly identified threats-viruses, laboratory leaks, and spillover events- and more to do with the "pathogenic entanglements" between our scientific understandings of infectious disease, inflammatory environments, and long-standing social inequities.
-
General ItemSaul Halfon
Saul Halfon works in the political sociology of science and technology, with a focus on the technical and sense-making practices of policy institutions, conceptions and mechanisms of public engagement, and practices of interdisciplinarity. His primary research emphasizes controversial science and technology issues, and the relations between authoritative and silenced voices in such disputes, leading to projects on international population policy, international GM food controversies, controversies over depleted uranium, and discursive practices in security and development policies. His current project focuses on the regulation of food risk and danger at the USDA.
-
General ItemAshley Shew
Ashley Shew participates in the STS PhD program, the Medicine & Society minor, the Disability Studies minor, the Bioethics graduate certificate, and Integrative Graduate Education Program on Regenerative Medicine as an associate professor. Her main areas of interest are philosophy of technology, emerging technologies, animal studies, bioethics and disability studies.
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General ItemJames Collier
Lane Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, jcollie@vt.edu
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General ItemLee Vinsel
Lee Vinsel studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His current work focuses on the production of Peoples & Things, a podcast featuring interviews with the world’s leading figures in the empirical study of technology and society, and his book project, A Good History of $#%@ Jobs, which examines why so many households in the United States can barely make ends meet.
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General ItemMatthew R. Goodrum
Matthew Goodrum's research focuses on the history of paleoanthropology and theories of human origins. He investigate the relationships between the natural sciences, such as geology and biology, and human sciences such as anthropology and archaeology.
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General ItemMatthew Wisnioski
Matthew Wisnioski studies the interplay between expertise and imagination in science, technology, and innovation. Through historical and ethnographic research, his work has explored the relationship between engineering activism in the 1960s and broad transformations in the meaning of technology; how scientists, engineers, and designers collaborate; and how “innovation” came to shape American life over the 20th and 21st centuries. An advocate for transdisciplinary critical participation, he has collaborated in a multiyear initiative to reimagine and remake engineering education at Virginia Tech and developed innovative STS courses that aim to cultivate reflective practitioners. He is currently exploring the role of multimedia in the rise of “STEM” education via a history of The Magic School Bus.
-
General ItemPhilip R. Olson
Philip Olsen's work engages with bioethics and body studies, death studies, women’s and gender studies, and social epistemology. He is currently working on writing projects related to public deathcare policy and the environment. He has worked with graduate students on a variety of topics, including death studies and material culture, cultural studies of diamonds, technology and religion, electronic medical records, cultural and political theory, healthcare ethics, epistemology, and several other topics.