Volume 18
Director’s Letter: Welcome to Science & Justice
As we look forward to the year to come, we appreciate the chance to share with you our accomplishments of the last year.
Science & Justice continues to be in the headlines, making a critical difference in California, the nation and globally. Our faculty served on the Innovation in Society Study Group for the National Science Foundation, were featured on podcasts and in the media communicating about the importance of centering ethics and justice in science and innovation, and began an effort to reimagine the nation’s social contract with science. The successes of the Science and Justice Graduate Training were recognized in the Kavli Foundation supported report written by researchers at the University of Michigan entitled, “Broadening Horizons Webinar: How STEM-in-Society Programs Train Socially Responsible Scientists, Engineers, and Policy Leaders.”
The Center also continued to be the hub of a vibrant research culture. This year we continued our National Science Foundation supported Leadership in the Ethical and Equitable Design (LEED) of STEMM initiative, and secured a new grant from the NSF to launch the Science and Ethics in Action (SEA) Research Study.
This year we were also host to inspiring collaborations and conversations, both on campus and across the nation and globe. We organized our 3rd international winter school on Innovation, Science and Justice which brought 24 undergraduates from Seoul National University to UCSC for two weeks. We also hosted an exchange with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile to support the creation of a BioSocioCultural Interdisciplinary Research Network. Finally, we advanced our Building Just Genomics with HBCUs Initiative through a reciprocal exchange with North Carolina A&T State University.
Our commitment to building opportunities for undergraduates to take part in Science and Justice research and learning also defined the 2024-25 academic year. In collaboration with the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, we made great progress developing a first of its kind Science and Justice undergraduate minor. We also assisted BME Professor Karen Miga conceptualize and host the BME80G Bioethics undergraduate seminar. Students were so inspired by these lectures and discussions that they created their own undergraduate bioethics club.
Our SJRC supported research also created opportunities for students to publish their work. The Just Biomedicine Research Group published an article, Cells and the city: The rise and fall of urban biopolitics in San Francisco, 1970–2020, in the Social Studies of Science. Graduate student Lucia Vitale (Politics) published an article, “Artificial intelligence and the politics of avoidance in global health” in Social Science & Medicine. Finally, the Science & Justice Training Program Fellows published a Zine: “Making a Time Capsule of the Present As We Meet the Future: Collective Creative Reflections.”
Despite ongoing system-wide and federal budget cuts that have led cuts to SJRC, the 2024-25 academic year has produced all this, and so much more! Congratulations to affiliated faculty who were promoted and received tenure – and those who published books – a special feat of the industries. Special congrats to members of our advisory board and steering committee who were honored for their work. We are ever thankful for their guidance and the support they and many units and divisions on campus continue to provide us.
Jenny Reardon
Founding Director, Science & Justice Research Center, Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Cruz
Oakes College, UC Santa Cruz
Science & Justice Leadership Team
Founding DIRECTOR | Jenny Reardon, Professor of Sociology
Co-DIRECTOR | James Doucet-Battle, Associate Professor of Sociology
DIRECTOR of Teaching the SJTP | Kriti Sharma, Associate Professor of Critical Race Science and Technology Studies
CENTER MANAGER | Colleen Stone
Science & Justice Steering Committee
James Doucet-Battle, Associate Professor of Sociology
Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Professor of Anthropology
Lise Getoor, Professor of Computer Science
Dee Hibbert-Jones, Associate Professor of Digital Art and New Media
Jenny Reardon, Professor of Sociology
Matt Sparke, Professor of Politics
The Science & Justice Mission
The Science & Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz is a globally unique endeavor that innovates experimental spaces, engages in collaborative research practices, and fosters emerging alliances between seemingly disparate sectors, disciplines and communities. Biomedical innovation, species extinction, toxic ecologies, access to healthcare, and many other contemporary matters of concern provoke questions that traverse multiple intellectual, institutional and ethico-political worlds. Science & Justice generates modes of inquiry and empirically rigorous research that address these enormous challenges and support livable worlds. The Center is home to the Science and Justice Working Group, the Science and Justice Graduate Training Program (SJTP) and sponsored research projects. The initiative builds on the UCSC campus’ historic commitments to socio-ecological justice and strengths in science studies and interdisciplinary research.
Sustaining a Vibrant SJRC Community
The Science & Justice Research Center supports a vibrant, collaborative community. Located in Oakes College, SJRC hosts visitors from across the UC system and around the world. The SJRC community is committed to sustaining an experimental ecosystem for novel ideas, dialogues, methods and collaborations. The Science & Justice Working Group remains the heart of our collective work. We also host regular reading groups and experimental mixers with affiliated graduate students and faculty who seek to further investigate the meanings and practices of science and justice.
Visiting Scholar Program
Since 2009, the SJRC Visiting Scholars Program has been a vibrant hub for interdisciplinary scholars across the UC-system, the nation and the globe. The Science & Justice Research Center offers opportunities for visiting scholars at all levels of their career (regardless of institutional affiliation) to participate in the community through research collaborations, reading groups and experimental mixers. In the 2024-2025 academic year, the Center continued hosting visiting scholars and exchanges. Refer to Appendix 1 to learn more about all our visitors.
This year we rounded out three years hosting the SNU in the World Program on Innovation, Science and Justice. Administered by the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at Seoul National University, the SNU Program is a university-led and government-funded initiative to train undergraduate students to be globally engaged scholars and leaders. This year we welcomed 22 undergraduates and 4 grad students to our campus for two-weeks of stimulating sessions led by 4 graduate students and 4 faculty from 4 divisions of our University, and 2 industry leaders. Students also enjoyed sessions with affiliated faculty at UC San Francisco and Stanford along with field trips to the surrounding Bay Area museums, cultural centers, and sites of innovation such as Google. The visit provided invaluable opportunities for exchange between UCSC and SNU students, including the popular dinner with the Everett Program and session with the Sustainability Office and the City of Santa Cruz. A highlight this year was a tour of the UC Santa Cruz farm and the human organoid lab.
We also established a visitor exchange with North Carolina A&T for a Building Just Genomics with HBCU’s Initiative. More information can be found under pedagogy.
Science & Justice Working Group, Experimental Mixers, Writing and Reading Groups
The Science & Justice Working Group (SJWG) provides a convivial and novel space to cultivate emerging connections, spark new questions for research, and nurture our communities’ collaborative ties. In addition to formally convening, our lively informal experimental mixers open space for all SJRC community members.
This year we organized 3 visitor programs, 28 Experimental mixers, a potluck, a fundraiser, and helped organize 11 BME80G lectures with Professor Karen Miga, and several co-hosted events. The Center began the year’s events on October 21st with a Book Celebration: Toxic City (Dillon) & A People’s History of SFO (Porter). On October 22nd SJRC Founding Director Jenny Reardon co-hosted with the Institute of Societal Transformation (IST) an election series event, Engaging Digital Democracy: Tools for Addressing Political Dis- and Misinformation. Finally, on October 23rd, we held our annual Meet & Greet, which is an opportunity to celebrate the new academic year, to welcome new members, and to share current work to foster emerging collaborations. This event-filled week set the tone for the year! As ever, Science and Justice was a sought after collaborator for events on campus, and we enjoyed helping to catalyze so many generative convenings. A few highlights from the rest of the year include The Lichen Walk with A. Laurie Palmer (an image from which is on the cover of this report). In Winter, we supported a Stand Up for Science Rally and helped establish the Public Action Research Network (PRAN) with meetings held monthly. On April 16th, we held a private screening of the GIVE IT A SHOT: DOCUMENTARY with filmmaker Vaishali Sinha. Then, in Spring, on May 08th, we hosted UC Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellow Shazeda Ahmed for a talk on Artificial Intelligence (Re)Invents Itself: AI Safety and the Rise of Epistemic Monoculture. On May 09th, we held a workshop, Academic Book Publishing with the University of Minnesota Press. On May 28th, we held space for Making a Time Capsule of the Present As We Meet the Future: Collective Creative Reflection with the Science & Justice Training Program Fellows.
All events are listed in Appendix 2.
Justice Sparks Innovative and Original Research
The Science & Justice Research Center continues to be an exemplar of how to transform commitments to justice into collaborative research projects. We formulate new methods and institutional practices where scientists and engineers work alongside social scientists, humanists, ethicists, artists and diverse public communities. SJRC affiliates pursue local, regional, national, and international research collaborations on issues that inform and affect institutional and public policy.
In 2024-2025 the center focused on two ongoing projects: the NSF-funded Leadership in the Ethical and Equitable Design (LEED) of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (LEED of STEMM) Initiative and our efforts to Build Diversity in Sociology and Science and Technology Studies. Along with collaborators from UCLA, Columbia, University of Washington, and Harvard, SJRC co-Director Jenny Reardon led a successful effort to secure a new NSF grant entitled, Science and Ethics in Action (SEA): A Cross Field Analysis of Scientists’ Experiences, Roles, and Perspectives of Embedded Ethics and Social Science (EESS) Research.
This year we also began new partnerships that catalyzed internationally-supported research. SJRC co-director James Doucet-Battle joined a global group of scholars, practitioners, and policy makers in Salzburg, Austria to create robust collaborations aimed at addressing health disparities and structural inequalities in medicine and public health. Co-organized and co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Salzburg Global Seminars, Salzberg Fellow Doucet-Battle helped form a Citizen Involvement in Evaluation team, that wrote and submitted a proposal, “Centering on Equity and Wellbeing Involving Citizens in Transformative Evaluation Systems.” The team’s proposal was approved for $8,000 USD in funding under the Salzburg Global Centering on Equity: Transforming the Health Science Knowledge System program Network Fund. The funding will facilitate an international seminar to facilitate the exchange of experiences and to build a larger network of researchers, practitioners, citizens, community organizations and policymakers who support citizen involvement in healthcare evaluation. The material prepared for and discussed in the seminar will form the basis for a special issue that will be submitted to New Directions for Evaluation (NDE).
In January 2025, Co-Directors Jenny Reardon and James Doucet-Battle traveled to Chile (pictured) to participate in a grant supported exchange with researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile on a project entitled, “BioSocioCultural Interdisciplinary Research Network: Rethinking Theories and Research Practices on Biodiversity and Gender.” The BioSocioCultural Interdisciplinary Research Network is a collaborative international platform that aims to articulate two significant areas of study: the production of data on biodiversity and gender as an epistemological stance. By combining researchers dedicated to work on the production of biodiversity baselines in Patagonia Station UC and those who work from feminist epistemologies, philosophy of science, and critical policymaking, this interdisciplinary research network aims to enhance our understanding of the importance of intersecting these two areas of study to address contemporary issues of the climate crisis and gender inequalities.
Reciprocating the exchange, 2 graduate students and 4 faculty members joined Professor Claudia Matus, Director of the Center for Educational Justice at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in a visit to UC Santa Cruz in the Spring 2025 term to continue discussions. During the group’s week-long visit, we scheduled a group lunch followed by short research presentations from faculty and graduate students designed to catalyze research connections. Rachel Meyer spoke about the bioethics and potential values of eDNA data, Greg Gilbert about the UCSC Forest Ecology Research Plot, Anna Friz on her research in northern Chile (lithium mining in the Atacama desert), Lars Fehren-Schmitz on paleogenomics, Alli Moreno on phytoplankton and deoxygenation, Kim TallBear on developing SING Canada, Lucy Ferneyhough on applied conservation research (eg: seed banking, data collection, nurseries, post burn monitoring, relearning workshops), Zac Zimmer on the public/privatization of science, and community member / alum Joanna Nelson on social-ecological systems and biodiversity. They also toured the Forest Ecology Research Plot, the UCSC Human Paleogenomics Lab, the Younger Lagoon Reserve with Gage Dayton and Elizabeth Howard, the campus farm with Darryl Wong, the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, explored the Año Nuevo Natural Reserve with Patrick Robinson, and toured the Arboretum & Botanical Garden with James Doucet-Battle. The group also met with Vice Chancellor for Research John MacMillan, members of the Coastal Science faculty, students, and staff, and the directors of the Center for Reimagining Leadership, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz and Sikina Jinnah.
Co-Directors Jenny Reardon and James Doucet-Battle with the BioSocioCultural Interdisciplinary Research Network at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Chile.
Our collaborators from Chile informed us after the visit that the exchange had had a transformative impact on the doctoral students who participated in Chile and California. The visit to UCSC exposed Chilean doctoral candidates to experimental fieldwork practices, critical biodiversity infrastructures, and interdisciplinary research environments. These experiences enriched their research and opened possibilities for future collaborations and international academic trajectories. They viewed the exchange as the first stage of a long-term partnership focused on advancing more just and inclusive science practices, and are currently pursuing new funding sources to continue and deepen this work, aiming to build a permanent hub for feminist and environmental knowledge production in the Global South.
Funding Faculty, Postdoctoral, Undergraduate and Graduate Student Research
SJRC projects and Training Programs support many faculty through course releases and research funds, graduate students through research fellowships, and undergraduate students through paid research opportunities and independent study units.
James Karabin (sociology) who presented on the Leadership in the Equitable and Ethical Design (LEED) of STEM Research Initiative.
This year, through a gift from the SNU in the World Program, in Winter 2025, SJRC awarded $15,000 in funds to eight affiliated faculty or campus units, $2,500 to four graduate students fellowships, and $1500 to industry experts to participate in lectures and present on original and collaborative research.
Sponsored by a National Science Foundation ER2-Ethical & Responsible Research grant overseen by SJRC Director Jenny Reardon, the Leadership in the Equitable and Ethical Design (LEED) of STEM Research Initiative provided graduate student research fellowships for two graduate students at UC Santa Cruz (one in the Social Sciences and one in the Arts), as well as one at the University of Washington and a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University.
Additionally, SJRC continues to assist students in identifying and applying for campus funding to conduct original and collaborative research. This year students received awards to work with us from the Undergraduate Research in Science & Technology Endowment, the Genomics Institute’s Research Mentoring Internship Program, and the Institute for Social Transformation’s Building Belonging Program.
For a complete list of the ongoing research our community conducted, refer to Appendix 3.
Creating a UCSC Ethics in Practice
At an increasing rate, many forms of scientific evidence are met not just with questions of curiosity and interest, but also with skepticism and mistrust. Healthcare systems are challenged by entrenched inequalities and profit motives. Algorithms encode bias into the heart of big data approaches to science and engineering. The next generation of leaders in biomedical and life sciences, environmental science, and engineering need to be adept at addressing these challenges. At SJRC, we believe this requires bold new approaches to ethics and research practice in STEM fields. We strive to exceed narrow standards for the ethical approval of science and prepare and support our students and faculty to be powerful stewards of socially robust and reflexive science. Our vision of good science exceeds simple compliance and strives towards institutional change. We work with affiliates to realize this in practice. Examples of our efforts from this year are described below.
A Model for Building Diversity and Interdisciplinarity
As we began the year, the nation was still in the midst of calls for increased attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all phases of STEM research, from project inception to publication. These calls led to an increased demand for scholars trained in Science and Technology Studies (STS) who can provide guidance to STEM researchers and serve as collaborators on STEM research teams. Yet the lack of diversity in STS has threatened to reproduce the same hierarchies of race, gender, class, and sexuality that have long been documented in STEM fields, as well as the broader societal barriers to equity and justice that these calls seek to address. While substantial resources were being allocated to address pipeline issues in STEM and to a lesser extent the social sciences, to our knowledge, few existed that specifically focused on training the next generation of STS scholars of color who provide critical guidance and nuanced expertise on justice and equity concerns in STEM. Despite this growing demand, there was little guidance on best practices for fostering this integration or for evaluating its effects. As efforts to increase the diversity of both researchers and the researched in STEM gained in prominence, the number of African and Indigenous descent PhDs working in STS remains low in the United States.
In 2024-2025 Science & Justice continued its history of initiating bold new collaborations to expand participation in and widen the circle of participation for productively engaging vital questions in both STEM and STS. Despite current challenges facing those engaged in this work, we remain committed to the wider project of broadening opportunity and excellence in STEM and STS. Under the direction of Associate Professor of Sociology and SJRC Co-Director James Doucet-Battle, we continued our efforts to Build Diversity in Sociology and Science and Technology Studies and launched an exchange program with North Carolina A&T. Learn more under Pedagogy.
We also continued our work with Genomics Institute staff and faculty to collaborate on integrating a concern for ethics and justice into genomics research. James Doucet-Battle (Sociology), Jenny Reardon and Colleen Stone worked with Lars Fehren-Schmitz (Anthropology), and Karen Miga (BME) to reconceive Genomics and Society work and co-organized Miga’s BME80G undergraduate bioethics course.
With the Stem Cell Journal Club, we hosted a joint session and human organoid lab tour (pictured above) with students from Seoul National University. Photo by Colleen Stone.
We continued our efforts to create a more robust approach to ethics grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration through our partnership with the Institute for the Biology of Stem Cells. Working with Camilla Forsberg (Biomolecular Engineering) and Lindsay Hinck (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology), we created a Science and Justice training component for the successful EDUC 4: CIRM Research Training Grant “CIRM Scholar” Award. This year our work with the IBSC included a talk about the ethics of human organoid research and a tour of the human organoid lab with visiting students from SNU (see image above). We look forward to continuing to work with IBSC to expand training opportunities in stem cell research to include a critical focus on questions of ethics and justice. Refer to this UCSC news story for more information.
Finally, to clarify, review, and revitalize the roles and value of engaging bioethicists and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts in STEM research, SJRC continued a national and international collaborative initiative informally called LEEDof STEMM. The Leadership in the Ethical and Equitable Design (LEED) of STEM Research Initiative proceeds in three phases: background research; drafting of LEED Principles and Practices; and International Discussion and Write-Up of LEED Principles and Practices. SJRC Founding Director and Professor of Sociology Jenny Reardon was the PI of the successful grant application to the National Science Foundation ER2-Ethical & Responsible Research ($399.994) that supported the first phase. Sandra Soo-Jin Lee (Columbia University) and Mildred Cho (Stanford) are the co-PIs, and Evelynn Hammonds (Harvard), Aaron Panofsky (UCLA), Malia Fulteron (University of Washington), and Sara Goering (University of Washington) are senior personnel. This year we found the group publishing articles in high-impact journals and presenting findings at conferences. For details, see Appendix 3.
For a complete list of the ongoing research our community conducted, refer to Appendix 3.
Science & Justice Pedagogy
In addition to sparking innovative research, since its beginning the SJRC has supported the creation of innovative pedagogy that fosters transdisciplinary collaborative learning that brings together faculty and students from across the UC Santa Cruz campus, from engineering, physical and biological sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts.
Science & Justice Graduate Training Program
The SJRC is home to the globally unique Science & Justice Training Program (SJTP). The program teaches graduate students from across all five divisions how to collectively address the moments where questions of science meet questions of justice.
Pie chart showing 123 graduate students (Art: 15, Engineering: 20, Humanities: 21, PBSci: 10, Social Sciences: 57) from 24 departments have taken part in the Program’s introductory course.
Started in 2010 with a grant from the National Science Foundation, the internationally-recognized Science & Justice Training Program (SJTP), draws together masters, early career PhD students and faculty from across all five Divisions of the University. 10 students (Art: 2, Engineering: 2, Humanities: 1, PBSci: 2, Social Sciences: 4) who took the training program’s introductory course Science & Justice: Experiments in Collaboration in the Winter 2024 term with SJRC Director of Teaching Kriti Sharma, entered the program in Spring. These SJTP fellows began conducting original research and collaborative projects over the summer. In the 2024-25 academic year, Sharma mentored graduate students who chose to participate in the program and pursue the Science & Justice graduate certificate.
On May 28th, the Science & Justice Training Program Fellows came together with the SJRC community for a culminating event, “Making a Time Capsule of the Present As We Meet the Future: Collective Creative Reflections.” Together they considered the following questions: If we are packing a bag to move into the future of science, what values, practices, teachings and communities do we want to take with us from the past, what do we want to leave behind, and what do we want to make that we don’t already have? The fellows also asked: What happened over the rather extraordinary last year? What were our most urgent questions a year ago, and what are they now? What has changed?
Assistant Professor Kriti Sharma (CRES) with fellows and participants in the Oakes College Mural Room and on Zoom. As pictured through the DTen monitor.
The audience was invited into a creative storyboarding session, where we reflected on these questions in small groups and collected these reflections into a “time capsule” zine that will document this moment of conflict and inquiry around science and justice.
The 268A seminar will be offered again in Winter 2026, followed by a planned return of 268B in Spring 2026. Future resources don’t allow for a Director of Teaching course release, and so the Steering Committee has proposed restructuring the Training Program to bring back the A/B offerings.
Over the last 13 years, the introductory course for the Science & Justice Training Program has trained 123 graduate students representing 24 different UC Santa Cruz departments. Participating in the program helps students build their careers and catalyzes new collaborative initiatives within the university. Our students demonstrate early career success, demonstrated by their successful applications for fellowships, grants, postdoctoral positions and innovative entrepreneurial efforts.
Building Science and Justice Undergraduate Curriculum
Science and Justice Minor
UC Santa Cruz offers a wide range of courses across its many disciplines that address the relationships between science, society and justice. Science & Justice affiliates have long desired to create a large core course that would teach undergraduates the fundamentals of Science and Justice. Over this last year, SJRCs Steering Committee continued to discuss the potential with faculty and staff across campus for creating a minor in Science and Justice. A Science and Justice minor could offer students an opportunity to learn the transdisciplinary field of science and justice studies while at the same time receiving training in their major discipline. SJRC continues to gather faculty to discuss and conceptualize new courses and a proposal for a minor in Science and Justice to be hosted by the newly established Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department. With Felicity Amaya Schaeffer (Chair of CRES), and support from Humanities for a Science and Justice Minor Hub and Research Cluster, faculty met to continue developing the minor proposal. In Spring 2025, the proposal was submitted to the Academic Senate.
Meanwhile, S&J faculty are finding impromptu opportunities to co-teach. For example:
- Anna Friz provided a lecture to Jenny Reardon’s Nature & Society class
- M Ty and Jenny Reardon coordinated a jointly attended field-trip in their respective classes (Intro to Science & Justice and Nature & Society).
Experience Science at HBCUs: Building Just Genomics
As part of SJRC’s long standing goal to transform institutional structures so that they support a much more diverse range of scholars and perspectives, this year we continued to work with Dr. Joseph Graves, Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University, to strengthen ties between our two universities. With support from the Graduate Division, and in collaboration with the faculty and staff in the Genomics Institute, in June 2025, we facilitated student and faculty exchanges. We aimed to avail UCSC students from all backgrounds of the opportunity to experience the pedagogical and research cultures of an Historically Black College and University (HBCU), while offering 8 NCAT undergraduate students, 2 graduate students, and 2 faculty members a reciprocal opportunity to visit UCSC. While at UCSC, NCA&T students met with faculty in the SJRC, studied in the lab with faculty and graduate students working in genomics, as well as UCSC researchers across Science Hill, the Westside Research Park, and the Coastal Science Campus. More information is available in Appendix 3.
SNU in The World Program on Innovation, Science and Justice
SNU Associate Professor of Science Studies Doogab Yi with SJRC Director Jenny Reardon
This year we rounded out three years hosting the SNU in the World Program on Innovation, Science and Justice. In January and February 2025 by hosting SNU Associate Professor of Science Studies Doogab Yi (pictured with SJRC Founding Director Jenny Reardon), 4 graduate students and 22 undergraduate students from SNU for two weeks. The program consisted of a series of lectures with SJRC affiliated faculty at UC Santa Cruz, UC San Francisco, and Stanford along with field trips to the surrounding Bay Area museums, cultural centers, and sites of innovation such as Google. SNU students also enjoyed a welcome dinner at the Rachel Carson College Red Room with participants and Everett Program Fellows, a walking tour of the campus farm, a tour of a human organoid lab, social gatherings, and a final student presentation over lunch.
Refer to the Winter 2025 Schedule and Participant Biographies.
Funding the Future of Science & Justice
With the support of the SJRC Steering Committee, since inception, the Science and Justice Research Center (SJRC) has helped faculty across campus raise over $11.2 million in grants. The SJRC also has received a total of $2,688,190 in grants and gifts to support funded research and training initiatives (refer to Appendix 6 for a list of active grants and Appendix 8 for a full breakdown).
Additional grant funding and donor contributions will secure our efforts to build an internationally recognized program that trains the next generation of scholars to responsibly take up the important social and scientific problems of our time. We are particularly focused on supporting the next generation of genomics student researchers and future leaders in the fields of science and justice, on November 20, we hosted a Building Just Genomics with HBCUs Giving Day 2024 campaign.
Giving Day 2024
With additional support, we can invite more students and faculty to participate in future exchanges and extend the program schedule.
Higher levels of administrative support also will help us to develop our research infrastructure and our ability to obtain large-scale grants. SJRC is a highly sought after research partner. We regularly turn down opportunities to develop funded research with partners because of limited support for SJRC. Thus, a major goal of the Center is to secure an endowment. Founding Director Jenny Reardon and Manager Colleen Stone with the advice of the SJRC Steering Committee continued to work closely with University Relations and Development Officers to realize this goal.
Reflecting on Our Progress and Looking Ahead
The 2024-25 academic year marked the end of our thirteenth year as a research center. The SJRC has become a dynamic and collaborative infrastructure for training the next generation of humanities, natural and social science researchers and engineers who are trained to pursue their research and make discoveries in ecosystems where ethics and justice are primary concerns. The Center and its affiliated faculty remained key partners in creating innovative training, curriculum, and research across campus that recognizes the questions of ethics and justice at stake as we forge knowledge and innovations. In particular, we continued to deepen our collaborations with our colleagues in Science and Engineering as well as our colleagues in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies to develop training opportunities in Science and Justice. We also deepened and extended our national and international networks through the launch of our LEED of STEMM initiative.
Reflecting on our progress and growth, we continue to refine Center practices, and document them in the SJRC Handbook. Center Manager, Colleen Stone continued to meet with Founding Director Jenny Reardon and Sociology Department Manager Jessica Lawrence to better understand and delineate responsibilities of administrative tasks related to running the Center. Reardon, James Doucet-Battle, Kriti Sharma, and Stone also continued to envision specific ways in which SJRC can provide effective support to the educational and research efforts of our diverse faculty and student communities.
We are committed to developing future research collaborations, and seek collaborators from all divisions at UCSC and in the UC system, as well as in the community. We will continue to provide a critical and dynamic space that supports the diverse needs of our faculty, researchers, students, and staff.
As we plan the year ahead, we will do our best to keep activities available as resources allow. Top activities we look forward to are advancing our partnerships with North Carolina A&T, launching our new NSF grant on Science and Ethics in Action, and partnering with Alondra Nelson and the Institute of Advanced Study to launch The Public’s Science–A New Social Contract for American Research Policy.
SJRC’s promise is simple and bold. The benefits are manifold: improved outcomes not just for humans, but for the many non-human lives as well; approaches to science and technology that balance prosperity and justice, health, ecological survival and ethics. Our affiliated researchers and interdisciplinary teams have built decades of scholastic expertise examining the life sciences and biomedicine, health, environment, food, and racial and economic justice. The Center provides the critical milieu in which the creative sharing of this expertise leads to novel praxis and knowledge that fosters and supports diverse lives and futures.
Thank you for making a more just world possible!
Appendix 1: Visiting Scholars
Anna Bridel | Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Claudia Matus | Director of the Center for Educational Justice at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Learn more about The BioSocioCultural Interdisciplinary Research Network visit to UC Santa Cruz in May 2025.
Jaco de Swart | AIP Helleman Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT’s Program in Science, Technology and Society, and affiliate at MIT’s Department of Physics.
Kim TallBear | Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society.
Doogab Yi | Associate Professor of Science Studies at Seoul National University and Director of The SNU in the World Program on Innovation, Science and Justice (Winter 2023, 2024, 2025). For more information refer to the SNU Project page.
Appendix 2: Science & Justice Working Group (SJWG) Events, Experimental Mixers, and Reading Groups
Our 2024-2025 events are linked below for more information.
- June 13, 2024 | UCSC-HBCU visit to North Carolina State University A&T: Building Just Genomics
- October 21, 2024 | Book Celebrations: Toxic City & A People’s History of SFO
- October 22, 2024 | Engaging Digital Democracy: Tools for Addressing Political Dis- and Misinformation
- October 23, 2024 | SJRC Meet & Greet
- October 30, 2024 | Walking in the Ecotone with Jim Clifford
- November 20, 2024 | Giving Day: Building Just Genomics with HBCUs
- November 22, 2024 | UCSC-HBCU Pathways Research Symposium
- December 4, 2024 | The Lichen Walk with A. Laurie Palmer
- January 15, 2025 | Potluck
- January 23, 2025 | Book Celebration The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity
- January 27, 2025 | SNU in the World Program Visit
- March 07, 2025 | Stand Up for Science
- March 11, 2025 | Critical Imagination in Crisis Times
- April 10, 2025 | Indians and Energy Transition: Green New Deal to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’
- April 10, 2025 | Public Research Action Network: Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge
- April 16, 2025 | GIVE IT A SHOT: DOCUMENTARY (Vaishai Sinha with Madhavi Murty)
- April 23, 2025 | TechnoScience Improv
- Apr 25, 2025 | Slow Seminar Book Celebration with Kat Gutierrez, Unmaking Botany
- May 06, 2025 | Through the Image of the Animal: The Celluloid Specimen with Dr. Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa
- May 07, 2025 | Dark Matter, Dirty Xenon, and the Limits of Laboratory Experiments
- May 08, 2025 | Shazeda Ahmed
- May 08, 2025 | Public Research Action Network: Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge
- May 08, 2025 | Nauenberg History of Science Lecture with Jessica Riskin
- May 09, 2025 | Academic Book Publishing w/ U of Minnesota Press
- May 13, 2025 | Contesting Techno Fascisms Now!
- May 14, 2025 | Book Talk! Erin McElroy on “Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times” (Duke University Press, 2025)
- May 15, 2025 | Activist Conversation with Erin McElroy on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
- May 15, 2025 | Book Talk! Anita Say Chan on “Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future” (UC Press, 2025)
- May 19-23, 2025 | The BioSocioCultural Interdisciplinary Research Network Visit
- May 23-25, 2025 | California STS Network Retreat 2025
- May 28, 2025 | Making a Time Capsule of the Present As We Meet the Future: Collective Creative Reflection with the Science & Justice Training Program Fellows
- May 30-31, 2025 | A Dawn and Two Dusks
- June 03, 2025 | THICK, SLIMY, SQUISHY, SQUIGGLY & GENERATIVE: A Conversation with Donna Haraway
Our 2024-2025 co-sponsored events with Professor Karen Miga’s BME80G course are linked below for more information.
- 04/04/25 Nuremberg moments: bioethics pasts and futures by Jonathan LoTempio, a Fellow in Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genetics and Genomics at Penn Medical Ethics & Health Policy. (flyer)
- 04/07/25 Artificial Intelligence and the Criminal Justice System by Kyle Robertson, a Lecturer of Philosophy, Assistant Director, Center for Public Philosophy at UCSC. (flyer)
- 04/11/25* Consciousness and its Place in Nature by Christof Koch, a Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute. (flyer)
- 04/18/25 From Feminist Science Studies to Native-Led Science for Land and Life by Kim TallBear, Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society. (flyer)
- 04/25/25 Contesting Scientific Anti-Racism: Who Decides Its Meaning?, by Jenny Reardon, Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science and Justice Research Center at UCSC. (flyer)
- 05/02/25 Consciousness and Neuroethics: Exploring the Boundaries of Personhood and Research by Mohammed Mostajo-Radji, Assistant Research Scientist at the UCSC Genomics Institute. (flyer)
- 05/09/25 Ethical Implications of Legacy Data Storage and Use: the HGDP as Case Study by Malia Fullerton, Professor in the department of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine. (flyer)
- 05/16/25* A One Health Guide to Bioethics by Benjamin Capps, Associate Professor at Dalhousie University. (flyer)
- 05/23/25* Crowdsourcing Smartphone Data for Biomedical Research and Algorithm Training: Ethical and Legal Questions by Ma’n Zawati is Associate Professor, Research Director, Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University. (flyer)
- 05/30/25 Tales From the Crypt: Craniometry, Computers and Mass Culture in 1960s Cambridge by Joanna Radin, Associate Professor of History of Medicine and History at Yale University. (flyer)
- 06/06/25 Guilty by Genetic Association: Database Disparities, Family Structure, and the Racialized Reach of DNA Surveillance by Tina Lasisi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. (flyer)
Appendix 3: Research Clusters & Projects
Building Diversity in Sociology and Science and Technology Studies Initiative
We situate our work examining the interrelated problem of diversity in both science and society at the intersections of sociology and science, technology, and society studies. Our Building STEM Pathways Project aims to map out the critical skills needed for building capacities to address current and future problems that require a broad analytical span of disciplines and expert areas of practice. A vitally important aspect of the Pathways Project involves undergraduate students in contributing to making robust intellectual linkages between the social sciences, history, politics, and genomic science to better understand diversity in the lab and in the society.
The SJRC with the Division of Graduate Studies, and the Office of African, Black, and Caribbean (ABC) Student Success are building intentional collaborations with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in order to improve the training and development of future scientific leaders. Under the direction of Associate Professor of Sociology and SJRC Co-Director James Doucet-Battle, we are working with longtime colleague Dr. Joseph Graves, Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University to not only strengthen ties between our two universities but to launch an exchange to provide UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) and NCAT undergraduate and graduate students and faculty with important opportunities to gain valuable professional development experiences in the pursuit of research, community, and knowledge exchange. Through a Growing Our Own grant secured by the Graduate Division from the University of California Office of the President, Doucet-Battle seeded a research-focused collaboration with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT).
James Doucet-Battle with students.
In August 2024, the grant enabled Doucet-Battle to bring 8 undergraduate STEM students, 2 graduate STEM students, and 1 ABC staff to NCATSU for one week (see photos above). Participants learned about the history and context of scientific research at HBCUs as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genomic research. They worked alongside NCAT graduate students and faculty in laboratories, presented research, and experienced the NCAT campus and town of Greensboro during Juneteenth celebrations while strengthening partnerships for future visits – including the Science & Justice Visiting Scholar Program hosting NCATSU scholars at UCSC.
Students not only found the experience productive and challenging, they urged us to find ways of making future trips for two weeks, even offering to help raise funds and recruit future applicants.
To support these efforts, on November 20th we hosted a Building Just Genomics with HBCUs Giving Day 2024 campaign, and plotted Summers 2025 and 2026.
UCSC-HBCU Pathways Research Symposium
Following the summer program, on Friday, November 22, 2024, we hosted the UCSC-HBCU Pathways Research Symposium featuring undergraduate research presentations from UC Santa Cruz, North Carolina A&T State University, and Howard University. Participants gathered virtually, to celebrate the cross-institutional connections and scholastic achievements of our talented cohort of students. We thank our partners, North Carolina A&T State University, the UCSC Division of Graduate Studies, and the Office of African, Black, and Caribbean (ABC) Student Success for your collaborative efforts.
In Winter 2025, we focussed our efforts on applying for a grant from the UC-HBCU initiative to strengthen UCSC’s efforts to attain and support graduate students. We are also planning for a reciprocal visit, inviting NCAT to spend two-weeks at UCSC during Summer 2025. Drawing from our previous work with the Division of Graduate Studies to coordinate staff and faculty in multiple divisions, departments, resource and cultural centers, and campus student success units allowed us to better holistically address student and faculty needs and structural barriers to supporting UC-HBCU programs. These campus partnerships are resulting in holistic support while we build external partnerships between UCSC and HBCU faculty. For more information, contact James Doucet-Battle.
Just Biomedicine
Just Biomedicine is a UC Santa Cruz-based research collective that examines the meeting of biomedicine, biotechnology, and big data along the Third Street corridor in the Mission-Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. Many hope that this convergence will democratize access to health information and produce revolutionary new medical treatments that new companies will make available to the public through market mechanisms. Yet, as in other domains, living with technoscientific transformations over time reveals how they produce new inequalities and injustices: new challenges to democratic governance; new surveillance regimes; and new forms of social stratification.
SNU on a walking tour of the Third Street corridor in the Mission-Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. Photo by Jenny Reardon in front of the Joan and Sanford Weill Neurosciences Building.
Source: Photo credit: the authors.
This year the Just Biomedicine Research Group published an article, Cells and the city: The rise and fall of urban biopolitics in San Francisco, 1970–2020, in the Social Studies of Science.
The team continued presenting their findings publicly at academic institutions and professional academic associations. In Winter 2025, graduate student alum Dennis Browe (sociology) and SJRC Director Jenny Reardon presented on Just Biomedicine at UC San Francisco as part of the SNU in the World Program.
Leadership in the Ethical and Equitable Design of STEM research (LEED)
Increasingly public and private funders recognize the critical importance of incorporating ethical and societal analysis into the design of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) research. Despite this growing demand, there is little guidance on best practices for fostering this integration or for evaluating its effects. This initiative—a national and international collaboration—aims to clarify, review, and revitalize the roles and value of engaging bioethicists and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts in STEM research. It proceeds in three phases: background research; drafting of LEED Principles and Practices; and International Discussion and Write-Up of LEED Principles and Practices. If you would like to take part in or contribute to this project, email Jenny Reardon. Learn more.
SJRC Director Jenny Reardon leads the Leadership in the Ethical and Equitable Design (LEED) of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (LEED of STEMM) Initiative funded in part ($399,994) by National Science Foundation. The LEED of STEMM initiative aims to clarify, review, and revitalize the roles and value of engaging bioethicists and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts in STEM research. Learn more about LEED of STEMM in this campus news article: National Science Foundation grant will help establish ethics and equity best practices for emerging forms of science and technology and in this January 2023 CellPress publication, “Trustworthiness matters: Building equitable and ethical science” that announces the collaborative project. Additional publications include a July 2023 open letter from the LEED team in Nature, “Pangenomics: Prioritize Diversity in Collaborations” and a July 2023 article in the American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), “Unbounding ELSI: The Ongoing Work of Centering Equity and Justice.”In October 2024, the LEED group led by UCSC grad student James Karabin published “A conjunctural analysis of the origins of ‘embedded ELSI’ in U.S. genomic medicine”in The Journal of Responsible Innovation. In April 2025, the Neuro LEED team (Sara Goering, Bri High, and Erika Versalovic) presented a poster titled, “The reasons why it’s hard to do are also the reasons why it feels important” at the International Neuroethics Society meeting (virtually) exploring the challenges and benefits of integrating ethics in neuroscience.
In addition to the NSF, this project is supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, the UC Santa Cruz Office of Research, and the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation. The co-leads of LEED STEMM and the research team are made up of faculty and students from UC Santa Cruz, Columbia University, the University of Washington, Stanford, UCLA and Harvard. In June of 2025, after the NSF ER2 grant was terminated by the federal administration, the LEED Team applied for Rapid Relief funds made available from the Spencer Foundation. If awarded, $25,000 will partially support graduate student researchers, administrative and PI time while publications are wrapped up and the team prepares additional funding proposals to proceed with phase two.
In Winter 2025, Reardon led the team that proposed LEED STEMM to submit a ($399,917) proposal to the National Science Foundation entitled, “Science and Ethics in Action: A Cross Field Analysis of Scientists’ Experiences, Roles, and Perspectives of Embedded Ethics and Social Science (EESS) Research.” The proposal was successful.
The SNU in the World Program: Innovation, Science and Justice at UC Santa Cruz
The SNU in the World Program, administered by the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at Seoul National University (https://oia.snu.ac.kr/snu-world-program-swp) is a university-led and government-funded initiative to train undergraduate students to be globally engaged scholars and leaders. The SNU in the World Program with the Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) at UC Santa Cruz is coordinated through the Science & Justice Research Center’s Visiting Scholar Program with Doogab Yi, Associate Professor of Science Studies at Seoul National University (https://bit.ly/2P9b7Wi). The SNU in the World Program at UC Santa Cruz is one of five other programs selected for funding and focuses on Innovation, Science and Justice. Other SNU Programs include visits to Washington DC (public policy), Japan (sustainable development), and Australia (climate crisis). If you would like to take part in or contribute to this partnership, email Jenny Reardon and Colleen Stone. Learn more.
Appendix 4: SJRC Publications Launched in 2024-2025
The Black Geographic
Praxis, Resistance, Futurity (Duke University Press, 2023)
The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity (Duke University Press, October 2023)
Co-edited by S&J affiliate Camilla Hawthorne (Sociology, CRES), contributors to The Black Geographic explore the theoretical innovations of Black Geographies scholarship and how it approaches Blackness as historically and spatially situated. In studies that span from Oakland to the Alabama Black Belt to Senegal to Brazil, the contributors draw on ethnography, archival records, digital humanities, literary criticism, and art to show how understanding the spatial dimensions of Black life contributes to a broader understanding of race and space. They examine key sites of inquiry: Black spatial imaginaries, resistance to racial violence, the geographies of racial capitalism, and struggles over urban space. Throughout, the contributors demonstrate that Blackness is itself a situating and place-making force, even as it is shaped by spatial processes and diasporic routes. Whether discussing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century abolitionist print records or migration and surveillance in Niger, this volume demonstrates that Black Geographies is a mode of analyzing Blackness that fundamentally challenges the very foundations of the field of geography and its historical entwinement with colonialism, enslavement, and imperialism. In short, it marks a new step in the evolution of the field. The book is available at: https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-black-geographic
Contributors included. Anna Livia Brand, C.N.E. Corbin, Lindsey Dillon (S&J affiliate, UCSC Sociology), Chiyuma Elliott, Ampson Hagan, Camilla Hawthorne, Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta, Jovan Scott Lewis, Judith Madera, Jordanna Matlon, Solange Muñoz, Diana Negrín, Danielle Purifoy, Sharita Towne
The Problem with Solutions Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2024)
The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food (University of California Press, August 2024)
In The Problem with Solutions SJRC affiliate faculty Julie Guthman (Sociology) combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector’s ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it.
Learn more about The Problem with Solutions in this campus news article: https://news.ucsc.edu/2024/09/guthman-problem-with-solutions.html
The book is available at: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-problem-with-solutions/epub-pdf
Toxic City Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024)
Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, April 2024)
In Toxic City SJRC affiliate faculty Lindsey Dillon (Sociology) presents a novel critique of postindustrial green gentrification through a study of Bayview-Hunters Point, a historically Black neighborhood in San Francisco. As cities across the United States clean up and transform contaminated waterfronts and abandoned factories into inviting spaces of urban nature and green living, working-class residents—who previously lived with the effects of state abandonment, corporate divestment, and industrial pollution—are threatened with displacement at the very moment these neighborhoods are cleaned, greened, and revitalized. Lindsey Dillon details how residents of Bayview-Hunters Point have fought for years for toxic cleanup and urban redevelopment to be a reparative process and how their efforts are linked to long-standing struggles for Black community control and self-determination. She argues that environmental racism is part of a long history of harm linked to slavery and its afterlives and concludes that environmental justice can be conceived within a larger project of reparations.
The book is available at: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/toxic-city/paper
Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular Knowledge in the Colonial Philippines (Duke University Press, 2025)
Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular Knowledge in the Colonial Philippines (Duke University Press, 2025)
In Anglo-European botany, it is customary to think of the vernacular as that which is not a Latin or Latinized scientific plant name. In Unmaking Botany, SJRC affiliate faculty Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez (History) traces a history of botany in the Philippines during the last decades of Spanish rule and the first decades of US colonization. Through this history, she redefines the vernacular, expanding it to include embodied, cosmological, artistic, and varied taxonomic practices. From the culinary textures of rice and the lyrics crooned to honor a flower to the touch of a skirt woven from banana fiber, she illuminates how vernaculars of plant knowing in the Philippines exposed the philosophical and practical limits of botany. Such vernaculars remained as sovereign forms of knowledge production. Yet, at the same time, they fueled botany’s dominance over other ways of knowing plants. Revealing this tension allows Gutierrez to theorize “sovereign vernaculars,” or insight into plants that made and unmade the science, which serves as a methodological provocation to examine the interplay of different knowledge systems and to study the history of science from multiple vantage points.
More information can be found at: https://dukeupress.edu/unmaking-botany
Appendix 5: Contributions to Policy
This Spring, co-Director Reardon and Alondra Nelson, founder of the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), wrote a proposal to establish a community of research and practice to develop the scholarship and policy insights necessary for a new social contract for American research policy that advances public science. We look forward to sharing more details soon.
Appendix 6: SJRC Funders
Since 2004, the SJRC has helped faculty across campus raise over $11 million in grants for collaborative research including training grants by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes for Health and California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Below is a summary of active awards. A full breakdown of external and internal grants and gifts can be found in Appendix 8: Key Accomplishments.
Current Funded Initiatives
Science and Ethics in Action: A Cross Field Analysis of Scientists’ Experiences, Roles, and Perspectives of Embedded Ethics and Social Science (EESS) Research
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation ER2-Ethical & Responsible Research
Principal Investigator: Jenny Reardon
Amount: $399,917
LEED: Leadership in the Equitable and Ethical Design of Science and Engineering
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation ER2-Ethical & Responsible Research
Principal Investigator: Jenny Reardon
Amount: $399,994
Science and Justice Minor Research and Planning Cluster
Funding Agency: The UCSC Office of Research, SEED Grant
Principal Investigator: Christine Hong, with Co-PI Jenny Reardon
Amount: $40,000 (applied) (awarded by Division of Humanities)
EDUC 4: CIRM Research Training Grant “CIRM Scholar” Awards
Funding Agency: California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
Principal Investigator: Institute for the Biology of Stem Cells: Camilla Forsberg, Co-PI: Lindsay Hinck
Amount: $4,913,271 ($2,500 SJRC portion)
The SNU in the World Program on Innovation, Science and Justice
Funding Agency: Office of International Affairs (OIA) at Seoul National University
Principal Investigator: UCSC Jenny Reardon; SNU Doogab Yi
Amount: $40,000
Critical Indigenous Health Studies Network
Funding Agency: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Principal Investigator: UCSC Jenny Reardon
Amount: $381,779 (declined)
Major Sponsors
Department of Sociology
Division of Graduate Studies
Division of Humanities
Division of Physical & Biological Sciences
Division of Social Sciences
The UC Santa Cruz Office of Research
Appendix 7: SJRC 2024-2025 Org Chart
SJRC Org Chart 2024-2025 (PDF)
SJRC Org Chart 2024-2025
Appendix 8: SJRC Faculty Affiliates at UC Santa Cruz
The Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) partners with multiple regional and international units to provide a discipline-neutral space to freely express and address areas of common concern through facilitated discussions, student exchanges, research, and training. Find out more about how affiliates support the Center.
UCSC Affiliated Faculty
SJRC Affiliated Faculty add to the liveliness of the S&J Community.
Elliot Anderson, Art
Hillary Angelo, Sociology
Karen Barad, Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, and Philosophy
Chris Benner, Environmental Studies, Sociology
Angela Brooks, Biomolecular Engineering
Micha Cárdenas, Art and Design: Games and Playable Media
Nancy Chen, Anthropology
Sharon Daniel, Film & Digital Media
Jennifer Derr, History
Lindsey Dillon, Sociology
James Doucet-Battle, Sociology
Madeleine Fairbairn, Environmental Studies
Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Anthropology
Caro Flores, Philosophy
Anna Friz, Film & Digital Media
Lise Getoor, Computer Science
Leilani Gilpin, Computer Science and Engineering
Julie Guthman, Community Studies
Kathleen (Kat) Gutierrez, History
Camilla Hawthorne, Sociology
Dee Hibbert-Jones, Digital Art and New Media
Christine Hong, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Literature
Sikina Jinnah, Environmental Studies
Naya Jones, Sociology, Global and Community Health
Geri Kerstiens, Chemistry
Amy Krauss, Feminist Studies
Andrew Mathews, Anthropology
Karen Miga, Baskin School of Engineering
Jaimie Morse, Sociology
Dimitris Papadopoulos, History of Consciousness
Tamara Pico, Earth and Planetary Sciences
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, History of Consciousness
Jenny Reardon, Sociology
Alicia Riley, Sociology, Global and Community Health
Warren Sack, Digital Arts and New Media
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, Feminist Studies
Beth Shapiro, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Matt Sparke, Politics
Beth Stephens, Art, E.A.R.T.H. Lab
Susan Strome, Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology
Anna Tsing, Anthropology
Anjuli Verma, Politics
UCSC Steering Committee
Members of the SJRC Steering Committee serve for 1 academic year (renewable). The committee advises the Center on its research, community involvement, programing, and building the Science and Justice platform. It also reviews committee members and assignments, the Center’s research themes, events, visiting scholars, and steers the Center’s overall programing. The committee meets twice per term.
James Doucet-Battle, Sociology
Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Anthropology
Lise Getoor, Computer Science
Dee Hibbert-Jones, Digital Art and New Media
Jenny Reardon, Sociology
Matt Sparke, Politics
Internal Advisory Board
Members of the SJRC Advisory Board serve for 3 academic years (renewable).Board members advise the Center on institutional support and fundraising, cultivate connections and synergy amongst partners, and help forge the overall Center vision and plans. The Board meets annually in Spring.
Elliot Anderson, Art
Karen Barad, Professor of Feminist Studies
Ed Green, Biomolecular Engineering
Warren Sack, Digital Arts & New Media
Anna Tsing, Anthropology
External Advisory Board
Geoffrey Bowker, Bioinformatics, University of California – Irvine
Joe Dumit, Anthropology, University of California – Davis
Sally Lehrman, SJRC Visitor
Laura Mamo, Health Equity Institute, San Francisco State University
Janet Shim, School of Nursing, University of California – San Francisco
Kim TallBear, Native Studies, University of Alberta, Canada
Fred Turner, Communications, Stanford
Appendix 9: SJRC Key Accomplishments
Key Accomplishments (eg: external and internal funding, grants, press coverage, research collaborations) can be found here.
