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Science and Technology Studies

Graduate Students

Graduate students who work on Science Studies related topics are strongly encouraged to contact us about their interests. Members of the Faculty Committee on Science and Technology Studies work with graduate students in a number of areas. For example:

  • The graduate students in Phil Brown’s Contested Illnesses Research Group work in a combination of environmental sociology, medical sociology, STS, and social movements.  Most of them have presented at the Society for the Social Study of Science, and several have published in Science, Technology, and Human Values.
  • Tara Nummedal has done prelim fields in the History of Science and is currently doing one on the History of Medicine. She also serves on two STS-related dissertation committees: one is for Oded Rabinovitch (History), who is writing about the family strategies of scholars in 17th-century France, and the other is for Jacqueline Wernimont (English), who is completing a dissertation on early modern literature and mathematics.
  • Lundy Braun is on the dissertation committees of a graduate student in American Civilization and another in Sociology, advising them on the history of race and science and contemporary debates on genomics. She also served on both of their prelim committees.
  • Anne Fausto-Sterling advised a graduate student for a prelim field in Science Studies and Anthropology.

In the 2004-2005 academic year, graduate students in Science Studies related topics formed a Mellon Workshop entitled "Science & Technology Studies: Methods of Research." This Mellon workshop served as a forum for graduate students from a broad range of departments who identify themselves as working within Science & Technology Studies (STS). In fostering such a community at Brown, the Mellon Workshop encouraged interdisciplinary investigation and exchange of the diverse methodologies associated with STS. In addition to sharing the topics and methodologies of their dissertation research, participants in this workshop engaged with the work of scholars who have undertaken the task of defining STS. The collaboration culminated in an international graduate student conference on the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, technology, and medicine: Mephistos 2005.

We encourage you to visit the website for Mephistos 2008, held at the University of Texas, Austin, April 4-6, 2008.