Author Archives: Colleen Stone

March 9, 2021 | V is For Veracity: a University Forum

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On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 5:30pm–7:00pm PST, there was a University Forum featuring SJRC Founding Director and Professor of Sociology Jenny Reardon with introductions and Q&A moderation by Assistant Professor of Sociology James Doucet-Battle.

A recording is available on YouTube.

Learn More

Co-Sponsored by University Relations, the Science & Justice Research Center, the Institute for Social Transformation, and the Sociology Department.

Feb 24, 2021 | Works-in-Progress with Tamara Pico

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On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 (4:00 PM – 5:30 PM) SJRC welcomed scholars for an open discussion of works-in-progress! This was a wonderful chance to engage with one another’s ideas, and support our own internal work. At this session, we heard from Science & Justice affiliate, postdoctoral scholar, and incoming Assistant Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences Tamara Pico who discussed her interests in understanding how practices in 19th century early U.S. geology continue to shape the culture and values in geoscience today. In this research, Tamara asks how modern fieldwork mimic 19th century practices in geology, rooted in imperialism and colonialism. In addition, Tamara explores the role of scientific racism in shaping geology as a discipline, exposing foundational U.S. geologists’ involvement in studies of racial typology.

Read this Scientific American article: The Darker Side of John Wesley Powell.

More on Tamara’s work can be found at: https://tamarapico.github.io//.

Rapporteur Report by Dennis Browe

We are delighted to welcome our new Science & Justice affiliate, Tamara Pico! Dr. Pico is a postdoctoral scholar and incoming Assistant Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences who researches ice sheets, landscapes, and the social cultural histories of the geosciences. While completing her PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, she also focused on a secondary field in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, making her fit right into our culture here of fostering transdisciplinary conversations and projects centered around justice and the sciences.

At her Works-in-Progress talk on February 24, 2021, titled “Linking Past to Present in a Postcolonial Field Science: Towards Critical Studies in US Geology,” Dr. Pico discussed the ways in which scientific racism was embedded in 19th century early U.S. geology (during the founding of the discipline) and how many of these assumptions and practices continue to shape the culture and values of geoscience today. Beginning with the story of John Wesley Powell, who led the 1869 Powell Expedition—the first U.S. government-sponsored expedition through the Colorado River into the grand canyon—Dr. Pico described how racist ideologies shaped the work of major figures in the field. For example, Powell wrote about finding ways to prove the inferior, “barbaric” status of the Ute people inhabiting the canyonlands and indigenous peoples more broadly, and wrote government reports recommending Native American assimilation.

After offering further examples of the racist assumptions baked into the work of leading early geologists, Dr. Pico discussed how these assumptions motivated earth system studies — they are not peripheral to the field but have always been a core part of studying the earth system. She then asked: What parts of those practices from 19th century geology do geoscientists still have and use today? Through “Linking past to present in a postcolonial field science,” she discussed some ways these early frameworks of scientific racism still show up today: 1) through concepts of “the outdoors” and undergraduate recruitment; and 2) through the absence of historical knowledge of the field’s original links to racism, imperialism, and colonialism in standard undergraduate geology programs.

During the question & answer session, the conversation took a number of turns, illustrating the importance of beginning to build a historical knowledge base to educate those entering the discipline. Participants discussed geology’s understanding of and approach to climate change; the field’s deep ties to the oil industry; the literal clothes and outfits worn by geoscientists conducting fieldwork; and conducting research projects in conjunction with local communities as full research partners and beneficiaries of the knowledge created. The meeting ended with a  provocative question: to shift training practices in the geosciences, is it enough to simply include the racist and masculinist history of the field when teaching undergraduates, or might there be a need to more fundamentally shift geological and ontological ways of knowing the earth’s materiality and its systems? After the participants offered multiple perspectives on this question, Dr. Pico remarked that she is inspired by the many ways that people know and can sense the earth, which she believes that geologists are now starting to grapple with more seriously.

Dr. Pico is currently collaborating on a project related to training geoscientists: GeoContext

Alondra Nelson speaking from a podium

Alondra Nelson named as Deputy Director for Science and Society at OSTP

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Science & Justice sends our congratulations to longtime friend and collaborator Alondra Nelson, who has been appointed by the Biden/Harris administration to the position of Deputy Director for Science and Society in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Dr. Nelson will be the first person to fill this Science and Society role, which will bring social science expertise to national science and technology policy.

Nelson made clear in her acceptance speech that she will make inclusion, equity and justice core guiding principles at the OSTP.  As she eloquently explained:

“I believe we have a responsibility to work together to make sure that our science and technology reflects us, and when it does that it reflects all of us, that it reflects who we truly are together.  This too is a breakthrough.  This too is an innovation that advances our lives. We have an incredible opportunity ahead of us to approach our science and technology policy in ways that are honest and inclusive, to bring the full strength of our communities—our experiences, our concerns and our aspirations—to every table as we think through emergent forms of science and technology. There has never been a more important moment for scientific development—to get scientific development right or to situate that development in our values of equality, accountability, justice, and trustworthiness.”

We are thrilled by Dr. Nelson’s appointment. We look forward to the values of social justice and the insights of social science guiding science and technology policy on the national stage.

Congratulations, Dr. Nelson!

Links:

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SJTP Fellow Dorothy R. Santos named YBCA 100 Honoree of 2020

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Congratulations go to Science & Justice Training Program Fellow and Film & Digital Media graduate student Dorothy R. Santos has been named an honoree by San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as one of their YBCA 100 for 2020!

The sixth annual YBCA100 celebrates the creative changemakers and everyday heroes focused on building sustainable, equitable, and regenerative communities. Learn more at: https://ybca.org/honoree/dorothy-r-santos/

 

The Pandemicene Podcast Season 2 launches January 27!

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The SJRC Pandemicene Project to reworld towards justice Season 2 of the podcast series begins airing January 27th!

Episode #10 of the series will feature a roundtable discussion with the Pandemicene Team graduate and undergraduate students who crafted and produced 9 podcast episodes, 9 blogs, and a zine for Season 1.
Podcast episodes air Wednesday evenings, 7:00 – 8:00PM PST, on KZSC Santa Cruz. Tune in to 88.1FM or http://streaming.kzsc.org/. Podcast episodes are also available on Spotify and archived on the project site.

The Pandemicene Project launches website for student podcasts and blogs

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How do we create knowledge that orients us towards justice at this critical historical juncture, in the middle of a viral pandemic, and a pandemic of social inequality and racial discrimination that has sparked global unrest?

The SJRC Pandemicene Project to Re-world Towards Justice has launched a new website to host student podcasts and blogs!  The Pandemicene Project can be found at: https://pandemicene.ucsc.edu/.

 

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Re-worlding Towards Justice: Undergraduate students join SJRC researchers

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Through engaging our communities the Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) is producing knowledge that can help all of us – scholars and scientists, students and activists – imagine and enact just futures both in our home state of California and in our communities worldwide.

As the SJRC responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, we began Season 1 of our Pandemicene Project in March 2020 from the premise that creating trust-worthy knowledge that can foster a more just world requires attending to the deep inequalities and fissures in the polity that this pandemic has laid bare. The developing areas of concern were captured in the campus news article, “Discrimination, governance, and trust in the age of COVID-19”, featuring SJRC Founding Director Jenny Reardon. In Season 1, UCSC faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students worked together to interview members of the Science & Justice network about scholarly responses to this critical historical moment. A podcast series with 9 episodes produced by students aired on our local radio station (KZSC 88.1 FM) Sunday evenings, and the blog series on the SJRC website expanded. The Daily Beast Interview, featuring James Doucet-Battle, assistant professor of sociology and interim director of SJRC, highlighted the glaring race problems of COVID-19 vaccine trials, while the special issue of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers featuring S&J Advisor and Politics Professor Matt Sparke’s article, “Contextualizing Coronavirus Geographically,” provided additional articles and perspectives on the pandemic. The first installment of the series, Dialogues on COVID-19 and Racism, by SJRC’s Theorizing Race after Race (TRAR) working group, “Black Geographies of Quarantine: A Dialogue with Brandi Summers, Camilla Hawthorne, and Theresa Hice Fromille” published on the UCHRI’s The Foundry.

Attending to what is going on locally (e.g., from the shelter-in-place locations of researchers), while drawing on the power and insights of our community elders and networks, over Winter and Spring 2021 the SJRC’s Pandemicene Project will launch Season 2. Season 2 will produce another round of podcast episodes and will expand to work in tandem with  several new and established collaborative SJRC projects, as described below, that in their own way each help answer our overarching question of how to create knowledge that orients us towards justice in the middle of both a viral pandemic and a pandemic of social inequality and racial discrimination that has sparked global unrest. In Winter quarter, undergraduate student interns, representing the following 14 majors and minors, will join current SJRC researchers: Biochemistry, Cognitive Science, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Economics, Feminist Studies, Film and Digital Media, Legal Studies, Literature, Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Sociology, and Statistics. Learn more about the students and independent researchers.

Our work over Season 2 will culminate in an ImaginACTivism workshop in Spring term. Stay tuned for a Call for Participation and Papers.

The following collaborative center projects will help feed Season 2:

The COVID-19 Pandemicene Project: Re-Worlding Toward Justice – Researchers will expand the zine, blog and podcast series by interviewing policy makers, practitioners, and mutual-aid and community organizers. Current student leads are looking to incorporate additional mediums (ie: animations, soundscapes, illustrations, etc.) and promotion methods (ie: social media, charts, graphics, photographs, maps, other new or historical oral and written materials). Students will help design and guide an ImaginACTivism workshop in Spring term. Learn more: The Pandemicene Project.

Incarcerated Care – In addition to joining a cohort of SJRC researchers in The Pandemicene Project, students will work directly with Film and Digital Media Professor Sharon Daniel’s team to expand the Unjustly Exposed interactive documentary website on COVID-19 in prisons and jails. Learn more: Season 1 Episode 4: Public Art and Carcerality.

Just Biomedicine: Orphan Drugs – In addition to joining a cohort of SJRC researchers in The Pandemicene Project, students will work with Dr. Andy Murray (UCSC Sociology alumni, SJTP graduate fellow and independent researcher) and UCSC faculty associated with the Center for Open Access Splicing Therapeutics (Jeremy Sanford, Michael Stone, Jenny Reardon, James Doucet-Battle, Matt Sparke). Students will research items related to pharmaceutical licensing agreements and bringing drugs to the market, and help the C.O.A.S.T. team understand the critical ethical and justice issues related to orphan-disease drug discovery and dissemination of splicing-based therapies. Learn more: Season 1 Student Blog.

Just Biomedicine: Third St. – In May, research from the SJRC Just Biomedicine Third St. research cluster will publish a chapter, “Just Biomedicine on Third Street? Health and Wealth Inequities in SF’s Biotech Hub” in a book (an atlas) titled, Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance. Students will help SJRC celebrate and advertise its launch with contributors in Spring. Learn more: Season 1 Episode 6: Housing Justice and Big Tech. 

Laboratory Life and Social Death: The Problem of Diversity in Science and Society – In addition to joining a cohort of SJRC researchers in the Pandemicene Project, students will work directly with Sociology Assistant Professor James Doucet-Battle on linkages between the social sciences, African Diaspora Studies, history, politics, and genomic science curriculum and training to conceptualize and develop an engaging and interactive online summer program in partnership with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Students will assist with research on and collecting materials related to the rigor, reproducibility and diversity of biomolecular data; identify other all-campus resources serving ABC students (ie: partner with AARC, HSI initiative, ODEI) and known challenges specific to summer sessions (refer to current BSU demands). Learn more: Bioethical Matriarchy (Doucet-Battle 2016), UC/HBCU initiative.

Theorizing Race After Race – In addition to joining a cohort of SJRC researchers in the Pandemicene Project, students will work directly with Sociology faculty James Doucet-Battle, Camilla Hawthorne, Jaimie Morse, and Jenny Reardon on a series of COVID-related racial health disparities research projects. Learn more: Black Geographies of Quarantine.

Winter Science & Justice Writing Together

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Writing Together sessions will take place during winter 2021 quarter on Thursdays, 10 – 12noon!

Zoom link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/99790295741?pwd=NXk4OWlMeWVnZ3JQYi95UzRrdlBpUT09

Meeting ID: 997 9029 5741; PW: 246

Wanting to establish a regular writing routine exploring science and justice?

Beginning, Thursday January 21st, join SJRC scholars during winter term for open writing sessions! Open to all students, faculty, researchers, staff, and visiting scholars.

We will continue to schedule quarterly writing sessions based on interest and availability.

For more information or to express interest contact SJRC Graduate Student Researcher Dennis Browe (sociology).

Pandemicene Podcast, Episode 9: Isa Ansari with Ruth Müller

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The Pandemicene Podcast aims to produce knowledge that can help all of us – scholars and scientists, students and activists – imagine and enact just futures both in our home state of California and in our communities worldwide.

Airing on KZSC Santa Cruz 88.1 FM, on Sunday, December 13th, 6:30 – 7 pm PST.

Link to the live stream, or listen below after the episode airs.

 

 

Welcome to the Pandemicene podcast! Today we welcome you to a conversation with Ruth Müller.

Guest Bio:

Ruth Müller is a researcher in the interdisciplinary research field of Science & Technology studies. She has studied molecular biology (M.Sc.; 2000-2007) and sociology (PhD; 2007-2012) at the University of Vienna, Austria. During her studies, she conducted research on breast cancer at the Medical University of Vienna  (2001-2005) before she started to work on issues of life sciences, society & policy at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna (2005-2011). She held postdoctoral positions at the Austrian Institute of International Affairs  (2012-2013) and at the Research Policy Institute, Lund University, Sweden (2013-2015), and she has been a recurring visiting research the Science & Justice Research Center, University of California Santa Cruz, U.S.. In February 2015, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Science & Technology Policy at the Munich Center for Technology in Society, a co-appointment with the TUM School of Management and the TUM School of Life Sciences.

Additional Pandemicene Project Information

Find more information on the COVID-19 Pandemicene’s project page.

The SJRC has a robust network of local and international public health experts, scholars, and practitioners leading the way with collecting resources for teaching about COVID-19, writing open response letters, and calls to action, and organizing and participating in online events.