CNS Speaker Series
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Mar22016SMSS 2134Karen Henwood
Karen Henwood is a social psychologist by training and a Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. She uses established and develops bespoke social science methodologies to investigate issues of real world importance and to understand how and why questions of risk (both environmental and social) matter to people in their everyday lives. Journal publications span across social science disciplines (especially sociology and psychology) and appear in specialist methods texts and contexts. Currently she is co-editor of the Sage methodology journal Qualitative Research. As well as her specialist knowledge of social science research methodologies, she has participated in several major UK Research Council (ESRC) research networks. The Timescapes network showcased longitudinal qualitative/temporal methods in lifecourse, family and community research, and explored theoretical and applied questions concerning identity transitions and transformations in times of socio-cultural and environmental change. As part of the SCARR network, her work involved conducting a multi-site, empirical study of how local communities live with risks from major socio-technical hazards in their immediate locality, and investigated the relevance of risk to people in their everyday lives. With Professor Nick Pidgeon, and fairly recently (2012), she co-authored a UK Government Foresight Report on Risk and Identity Futures,www.gov.uk/government/publications/identity-and-risk. She has also worked collaboratively with networked members of the arts, sustainability and low carbon energy communities on engaging the public in reflecting on major risk issues (such as climate change) and psychosocial aspects of risk. Currently, she is finalising a major ESRC/EPSRC study investigating everyday energy practices and low carbon transition. The outputs from this project will the topic of her talk.
Arguments about how to bring about change in contemporary ways of living and to address intractable climate and related risk issues are not uncontroversial: it is not so obvious how to take forward our individual and collective efforts to live...
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May182015Girvetz 2320Greg Siegel
Greg Siegel is an associate professor in the UCSB Department of Film and Media Studies, specializing in media culture and the history and theory of technology. He is the author of Forensic Media: Reconstructing Accidents in Accelerated Modernity (Duke University Press, 2014). His essays have appeared in Cabinet, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Discourse, Grey Room, Rethinking Disney: Private Control, Public Dimensions (Wesleyan University Press), and Television: The Critical View, 7th ed. (Oxford University Press).
Accidents have troubled Western thought and discourse since Aristotle. In the modern technological era, the ancient problem of the accident has assumed a peculiar and terrible aspect, its brutal reality reflected in every industrial mishap, its...
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Mar122015Girvetz 2320Erik Conway
EJrik Conway is a historian at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. His duties include research and writing, conducting oral histories, and contributing to the lab’s historical collections. Conway enjoys studying the historical interaction between national politics, scientific research, and technological change. His publications include Blind Landings: Low-Visibility Operations in American Aviation, 1918-1958 (2006), Atmospheric Science at NASA: A History (2008), and Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming (with Naomi Oreskes, 2010).
The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and -- finally -- the disaster now known as the...
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Finding Scientific Answers Online: How Laypersons Select and Process Science-Related Web 2.0 ContentDec42014Girvetz 2320Stephan Winter
Stephan Winter (Ph.D., 2012) is a research associate in the department of social psychology - media and communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His work focuses on credibility and information selection as well as on processes of attitude formation and expression in new media environments, particularly in the domains of science communication and online journalism.
The Internet has become an increasingly important source of science information for laypersons. Users have access to a virtually unlimited array of documents by diverse sources, which...
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May32014CNS Conference Room (Girvetz 2320)Ivan Amato, Patrick McCray
Ivan Amato is a science and technology writer, editor and communicator based in Silver Spring, MD. Currently the journalist-in-residence at UCSB’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, he is the author of three books—Super Vision: A New View of Nature (2003), Pushing the Horizon: Seventy-five years of high stakes science and technology at the Naval Research Laboratory (1998), and Stuff: the materials the world is made of (1997). A former managing editor at Chemical and Engineering News, Amato recently has been organizing and running science cafés in Washington, D.C., and now here in Santa Barbara.
Patrick McCray is a CNS PI and professor in the UCSB Department of History where he researches and teaches about post-1945 and contemporary science and technology. Before coming to UCSB, McCray worked at the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics and George Washington University. He is the author of numerous publications and books on the history of science and technology including Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition and the Promise of Technology (Harvard, 2004). His most recent book is titled The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future (Princeton, 2012).
If writer Ivan Amato creates an archive of contemporary scientific innovation, historian Patrick McCray studies that archive. In fact,...
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May92013Social Sciences and Media Studies Building, Room 2135Dr. Francesca Bray
Dr. Francesca Bray is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh and President-elect of The Society for the History of Technology. Her research includes the history of science, technology and medicine in China, and the anthropology of technology in the contemporary world, including the politics of everyday domestic technologies in California. Her most recent publication is The Warp and the Weft: Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China (Brill, 2007) and has 2 forthcoming works, Rice: New Networks and Global Histories (Cambridge) and Technology, Gender and History in Imperial China: Great Transformations Reconsidered (Routledge, expected May 2013)
Technologies played a dramatic role in birthing the modern industrial world, so it is hardly surprising that classic and widely familiar histories of technology trace narratives of triumphant Western progress, contrasted to backwardness or...
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Mar142013Social Sciences and Media Studies Building, Room 2135Dr. Denis Simon
Dr. Denis Simon is Vice Provost for International Strategic Initiatives at Arizona State University. He also is Foundation Professor of Politics and Global Studies. As one of the leading experts on S&T affairs in China, he has served as an adviser and consultant to the World Bank, UN, OECD, US Congress, and National Academy of Sciences as well as numerous multinational companies regarding the structure and operation of the Chinese R&D system.
China is aiming to overtake the United States and become a global leader in science and technology, which it sees as the key to its rising economic and political effort, from basic research to commercialization. In July 2012, China's...
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Oct292012UCSB's Loma Pelona Conference CenterMichael D. Gordin
Professor of History
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University Professor of History Michael Gordin discusses his new book, The Pseudoscience Wars:...
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Jul1120122320 GirvetzZach HortonUCSB
Swerve is a film created by the Collaborative Media Commons (CMC) and directed by Zach Horton. The Film is set in a nano-contaminated...
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Jul272012Girvetz 2320Luciano Kay
Postdoctoral Scholar, CNS-UCSB Interdisciplinary Research Group 2
UCSBNanotechnology is the science of understanding, controlling and engineering matter at the one-to-100 nanometer scale. At this scale, scientific discoveries have unveiled novel properties that offer the potential for new applications...
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May162012Broida 1640Brian Krebs
Editor of krebsonsecurity.com, a daily blog dedicated to in-depth Internet security news and investigation. From 1995 to 2009, Krebs was a reporter for The Washington Post, where he covered Internet security, cybercrime and privacy issues for the newspaper and the Web site. Krebs's blog has won numerous awards, including the honor of "Blog That Best Represents the Security Industry" two years in row at the RSA Security Conference. A frequent speaker on cybercrime topics, Krebs holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from George Mason University, and lives with his wife just outside of Washington, D.C.
Description:
In this talk, Krebs will discuss his research into the underground economy, detailing the many asymmetries and seeming contradictions in the ...
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Mar142012SSMS 3017Christine ShearerUCSB
IRG 3 postdoc researcher Dr. Christine Shearer will be on campus Wednesday, and will be giving a public lecture in the Sociology...
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Mar2320122135 Social Science & Media Studies Bldg.Denis Simon
Vice-Provost for International Strategic Initiatives
Arizona State UniversityThe PRC government’s ambitious program to catapult China into the ranks of the world’s leading innovation driven nations has led to the development of policies that conflict with...
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Mar920122135 Social Science & Media Studies Bldg.CNS Globalization and Nanotechnology IRG Members
Rich Appelbaum, Professor in the Department of Sociology and Professor and MacArthur Chair in the Department of Global and International Studies, a member of the CNS Executive Committee, and the leader of CNS-UCSB’s Globalization and Nanotechnology IRG.
Aashish Mehta, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies
Matthew Gebbie, Ph.D. student in the Materials Department
Shirley Han, Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology
Galen Stocking, Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science
UCSBChina is investing heavily in “indigenous innovation,” in an effort to become less dependent on export-oriented low-cost manufacturing, and more self-reliant as a global high-tech leader. In this panel, members of...
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Jan262012Loma Pelona Conference CenterChris Mooney
Lawrence Badash Memorial Lecture Series
Science reporter and author Chris Mooney discusses the psychological factors contributing to today's polarized political environment. Many...
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Jan132012McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSBProfessor Peter Van Wyck (Concordia University) and Professor Andrew Lakoff (USC)
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Dec302011Girvetz 2320Karl Bryant
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies
State University of New York, New PaltzKarl Bryant will lead an interactive demonstration and workshop on how to use NVivo, a powerful qualitative data management program. We will cover a range of...
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Oct262011Girvetz 2320Sharon Ku
CNS Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher
Guest Researcher, National Institutes of Health Office of History
This presentation analyzed the politics of the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) strategy and outcomes of its implementation. Primary sources from the National Institutes of Health’s...
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Oct1320112320 Girvetz HallCyrus Mody
Assistant Professor, History of Science
Rice UniversityThe late '60s and early '70s are remembered on many American campuses as times of strife and protest. It is well known to historians (...
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Oct2920112320 Girvetz HallStephen Zehr
Professor, Sociology
University of Southern IndianaThe National Science Foundation is designed as a dynamic organization to take advantage of new trends and problems in scientific and policy communities. However, from the standpoint of researchers, NSF programs and funding initiatives may...
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Aug112011TBA
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Aug22011CNS Conference RoomCathy Boggs
Acting Education and Communications Director.
CNS INSET summer interns Sergio Cardenas, Alex Lyte, and William Reynolds will give their oral research presentations, plus a discussion of public speaking/presentation tips led by Cathy Boggs.
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Jul262011CNS Conference RoomBarbara Herr Harthorn
Director, NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society; Research Executive Committee & IRG Leader, NSF/EPA Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology; Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, Anthropology, & Sociology.
Grantwriting tips workshop led by Barbara Herr Harthorn, followed by a mini-farewell reception for departing CNS post-docs Gwen...
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May202011CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2620Céline Lafontaine
Professeur agrégée, Département de sociologie
Université de MontréalAbstract: This presentation is based on a series of interviews with 20 Canadian nanotechnology researchers, focusing primarily on the economic, political and epistemological issues relating to the delineation of the...
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Mar302011CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2320Luis Campos
Assistant Professor of History
Drew UniversityAbstract: Is synthetic biology the new new thing for nanostudies? Over the past decade, various laboratory efforts labeled "synthetic biology" often...
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Mar92011CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2620Jackie Isaacs
Professor in Mechanical Engineering
Associate Director, Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (NSEC)
Northeastern UniversityAbstract: The NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing...
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Jan192011CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2620Fred Block
Research Professor in Sociology
UC DavisAbstract: The talk will put nanotechnology in the context of the broader innovation system and discuss the dilemmas we face in conceptualizing this system and improving its effectiveness. The premise is that...
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Dec12010Multicultural Center LoungeSheila Davis
Executive Director, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Abstract: How will manufacturing, recycling and disposal of nanotechnologies potentially impact the environment, the health of workers and communities' health? The CNS Speaker...
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Oct282010CNS Conference Room (Girvetz 2320)Guillermo Foladori & Edgar Zayago
Dept of Development Studies, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Mexico
Latin American Nanotechnology & Society Network (ReLANS)
CNS will host two scholars from Mexico, who will address nanotechnology & society issues in Mexico. Their visit is part of Workshop One coordinated under a UC...
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Jul282010CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2320Dr. Gwen D'Arcangelis
Postdoctoral Researcher, CNS-UCSB
UC Santa Barbara -
May122010CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2320Dr. Kalpana Sastry
Head of Division of Agricultural Research Systems Management Policies
National Academy of Agricultural Research Management, Hyderabad, IndiaDr. R. Kalpana Sastry is presently Head of Division of Agricultural Research Systems...
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May52010CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2320Dr. Sarah DaviesArizona State University
The CNS-UCSB Speaker Series welcomes Dr. Sarah Davies on Monday April 5, 2010. Dr Davies will give...
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Mar262010CNS Conference Room, Girvetz 2320Dr. John Gastil
John Gastil is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington where he teaches small group decision making, political deliberation, inter-cultural communication, theory development, and public scholarship. His research centers on political communication and deliberation with vectors to group decision-making, civic engagement, public opinion and attitudes, elections, and governance.
University of WashingtonThis talk will introduce the theory of cultural cognition, which presents a concise account of how public opinion forms and changes over time in response to political cultural signals from elites. The presentation will review recent evidence on...
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Mar1020102320 Girvetz HallDominique Brossard
Dr. Brossard is an associate professor in the department of Life Sciences Communication, with affiliations in Global Studies and the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is also leader of the Societal Implications of Nanotechnology group at the NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. She teaches courses in strategic communication theory and research with a special emphasis on science and risk communication.
Her timely talk discussed how audiences make sense of complex information related to new technologies such as nanotechnology. As news audiences increasingly turn to online sources for their information about science and technology, it is critical...
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May302009Elings Hall 1601Michael Bess
Chancellor's Professor of History
Vanderbilt UniversityScience fiction films and novels often present us with remarkably imaginative visions of the future. In this talk I argue that all the most popular and influential versions of such...
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Mar2320091605 Elings HallDan KahanDan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale LawSchool. In addition to risk perception, his areas of research includecriminal law and evidence. He is also one of the instructors in Yale LawSchool’s Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic. Prior to coming to Yale in1999, Professor Kahan was on the faculty of the University of ChicagoLaw School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall,of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Harry Edwards of the UnitedStates Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He received his B.A. fromMiddlebury College and his J.D. from Harvard University.The cultural cognition of risk refers to the tendency ofindividuals to conform their perceptions of the risks of putativelydangerous activities to their cultural evaluations of those activities....
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Dec320083250 Elings HallAtul WadDr. Wad has over 25 years of experience in technology and corporatestrategy, global competitiveness, sustainable business development,technology and trade in emerging markets in Africa, Asia and LatinAmerica and the Caribbean as a consultant, entrepreneur andacademic. Bringing a strong emphasis on sustainability, innovationand governance, he specializes in the different aspects of designingand implementing value added technology based ventures that buildupon the competitive resources of these countries and that producesocial and environmental returns in addition to private. Dr. Wad hasbeen involved in starting or building such ventures in various sectors.He has been active in developing support systems for sustainabletechnology based ventures (incubators), advising such companies intechnology strategy, management, marketing, corporate governance,community engagement, trade and strategic alliance formation,assisting in raising financing at various stages in the growth of thesecompanies, providing policy analysis to governmental and internationalagencies in the technology and trade areas, and conducting policyresearch on the issues involved in sustainable business developmentin emerging markets. He has also taught, lectured and publishedin this field. He is currently President of Sustainable TechnologyVentures and a Visiting Fellow at CENTRIM, University of Brighton.
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Dec1220083001 Elings HallElena Simakova
Dr. Simakova is a postdoctoral associate with the Department of
Science and Technology Studies and the Center for Nanoscale
Systems in Information Technologies at Cornell University. She is
currently examining the brokering of collaborations and universityindustry
knowledge and technology transfer around emerging
nanotechnologies. Regulatory and funding agencies, together with
governance mechanisms adopted by universities, arguably influence
practices of commercialization of science, but in what sense?
And how do various forms of accountability relations apply to and
enact specific emerging technologies? Accordingly, her research
aims at an analysis of collaboration as an element of scientific
organizational discourse and as an accountability resource. Dr.
Simakova’s other research interests include the construction of
credible accounts of emerging technologies by corporate actors
in the situations of uncertainty about the properties of new
technologies. -
May2020083001 Elings HallFred Block
Dr. Fred Block is Professor of Sociology at UC Davis. His current
research focuses on what he terms “stealth industrial policy” - the
ways in which the U.S. government actively supports leading-edge
technology sectors, despite the prevailing belief that technological and
industrial advances are best left to market forces. He has authored
numerous books including The Vampire State and Other Myths and
Fallacies About the U.S. Economy; Postindustrial Possibilities: A
Critique of Economic Discourse; and The Mean Season: Attack on the
Welfare State. He currently serves on the editorial board of Politics and
Society.Studies in Comparative International Development, and has
been elected to the Sociological Research Association. -
May152008Dr. Arie Rip
Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology
School of Management and Governance of the University of Twente, The Netherlands