Author Archives: Colleen Stone

May 16, 2025 | BME80G Series: Benjamin Capps on A One Health Guide to Bioethics

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Friday, May 16, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

VIRTUAL (flyer) Zoom Registration

On Friday, May 16 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Benjamin Capps.

A One Health Guide to Bioethics

One Health connects the health of non-human animals and human beings to the environments they share.  The relationships are seen in the natural origins of zoonotic pandemics, which can be explained through animal welfare, conservation, ecology, as well as public health.  My work in bioethics attempts to define these connections.  However, I am often told that it’s all very well to define one health ethics, when all that is needed is a pragmatic, or practical ideal of the one health approach.  My response is that ethics is embedded in pragmatism, and you can’t escape ethical dilemmas by just being practical.  Moreover, by avoiding hard environmental questions, a one health approach often becomes a justification for public health.  Public health is anthropocentric and has no regard for the interests of animals or the non-human environment; in practice, it often excludes ethical conservation, ecology, and environmentalism.  In this seminar, I will define one health ethics, and try to answer (maybe) some hard questions using actual cases.  The objective is to appreciate that being practical (doing science or doing public health) is an inherently bioethical endeavour.

Benjamin Capps, Associate Professor, Department of Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University.

Benjamin Capps is  is an associate professor in the Department of Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University.  Before moving to Canada in 2014, he was a member of faculty at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore (2008-2014).  Since 2017, Ben has chaired the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Committee on Ethics, Law and Society. He has published One Health Environmentalism (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Contested Cells: Global Perspectives on the Stem Cell Debate (co-editor, Imperial Collage Press, 2010), and Addiction Neurobiology: Ethical and Social Implications (with others, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009).  In 2024, he was awarded a grant to lead a residential workshop at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, on The Ecological Genome Project and the Promises of Ecogenomics for Society.  He is a member of the Humanimal Trust’s scientific committee (registered charity, UK, since 2022), and served on the Neuroethics Working Group of the Bioethics Advisory Committee (Singapore; 2011-2014), and Pro-Tem National Oversight Committee for Human-Animal Combinations in Stem Cell Research (Ministry of Health, Singapore; 2011-2012).  He has been an advisor for the World Health Organisation, World Federation for Animals, Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission, and UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

May 15, 2025 | Activist Conversation with Erin McElroy on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project

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Thursday, May 15, 2025

10:00-11:30 am

Humanities 1, Room 210

Science & Justice colleagues are invited gather on May 15th from 10:00-11:30 am in Humanities 1, Room 210 for a talk with Erin McElroy on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.

About the Speaker

Erin McElroy is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington and coeditor of Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance.

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)

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Thursday, May 15, 2025

1:00-3:00pm

Humanities 1, Room 210 + Zoom

Anita Say Chan, author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (UC Press, 2025).

Anita Say Chan, author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (UC Press, 2025).

Science & Justice colleagues are invited gather on May 15th from 1:00-3:00pm in Humanities 1, Room 210 (or over Zoom) for a talk by Anita Say Chan, author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (UC Press, 2025).

About the Book

The book is available at UC Press: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/predatory-data/paper

The first book to draw a direct line between the datafication and prediction techniques of past eugenicists and today’s often violent and extractive “big data” regimes.

Predatory Data illuminates the throughline between the nineteenth century’s anti-immigration and eugenics movements and our sprawling systems of techno-surveillance and algorithmic discrimination. With this book, Anita Say Chan offers a historical, globally multisited analysis of the relations of dispossession, misrecognition, and segregation expanded by dominant knowledge institutions in the Age of Big Data.

While technological advancement has a tendency to feel inevitable, it always has a history, including efforts to chart a path for alternative futures and the important parallel story of defiant refusal and liberatory activism. Chan explores how more than a century ago, feminist, immigrant, and other minoritized actors refused dominant institutional research norms and worked to develop alternative data practices whose methods and traditions continue to reverberate through global justice-based data initiatives today. Looking to the past to shape our future, this book charts a path for an alternative historical consciousness grounded in the pursuit of global justice.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

About the Author

Anita Say Chan is a feminist and decolonial scholar of Science and Technology Studies and Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Media Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

May 14, 2025 | Book Talk! Erin McElroy on “Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times” (Duke University Press, 2025)

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025

5:00-6:30pm

Humanities 1, Room 202

The Center for Racial Justice Presents: Book Talk with Erin McElroy.

About the Book

In Silicon Valley Imperialism, Erin McElroy examines how Silicon Valley’s technocapitalist model has expanded globally, focusing on its manifestation in postsocialist Romania. McElroy reveals how this expansion perpetuates gentrification, racial dispossession, and economic inequality both in the San Francisco Bay Area and Romania. The book also highlights Romanian resistance movements that draw on socialist legacies to envision more equitable social alternatives, ultimately arguing that technocapitalism represents an unsustainable model of economic growth.

About the Author

Erin McElroy is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington and coeditor of Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance.

May 13, 2025 | Contesting Techno Fascisms Now!

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025

3:30-5:00pm

Namaste Lounge

This panel explores ways that fascism today manifests in unexpected sites and imaginaries, including visions of techno-utopia, nationalist movements for animal rights and calls to colonize outer space. The panelist assembled here will each take a keyword of the emergent fascist trends and think through ways to contest fascisms now.
 
Panel Participants:
  • Neda Atanasoski; Professor and Chair, Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Maryland. Keyword: Eugenic Fascism
  • Felicity Amaya Schaeffer; Chair, CRES and Professor FMST, UCSC. Keyword: Eugenic Fascism
  • Neel Ahuja; Professor, Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Maryland. Keyword: Environmental Fascism
  • Erin McElroy; Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. Keyword: Techno-Feudalism

Hosted by the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department

May 09, 2025 | BME80G Series: Malia Fullerton on Ethical Implications of Legacy Data Storage and Use: the HGDP as Case Study

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Friday, May 09, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, May 09 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Stephanie Malia Fullerton.

Ethical Implications of Legacy Data Storage and Use: the HGDP as Case Study

Much biomedical research, including genetic research, relies on easily accessible, individual level data on hundreds or thousands of research participants. As the need for larger and larger sample sizes grows and where prospective data collection is challenging, the norm is for investigators to draw on in silico genomic data derived from previous studies, available open-access or via various controlled-access data sharing mechanisms. One such open-access resource, the Human Genome Diversity Project collection, includes cell lines from 1063 anonymous individuals sampled from 52 populations around the world. The cell lines were developed from specimens collected decades prior to the collection being made available in 2002, and in partial response to controversy about prospective collection in Indigenous and marginalized communities. There is no extant record of what biospecimen donors were told about the ways that their samples would be used and very few of those involved in collecting the original samples are still living. Nevertheless, the cell line collection and extensive genetic data derived from the cell lines, including whole genome sequence information, continue to be widely used in many kinds of human genetic research. While evidence of individual harm is lacking, Dr. Fullerton will argue that ongoing open-access use of data of unclear provenance poses numerous risks for the broader genomics research community.

Malia Fullerton, Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, University of Washington School of Medicine.

Malia Fullerton, DPhil, is Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received a doctorate in Human Population Genetics from the University of Oxford and later re-trained in Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) research with a fellowship from the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. Dr. Fullerton contributes to a range of empirical projects focused on clinical translational genomics including in collaboration with the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network, the Polygenic Risk Methods in Diverse Populations (PRIMED) Consortium, and the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC).

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

May 09, 2025 | Academic Book Publishing w/ U of Minnesota Press

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Friday, May 09, 2025

11:00am-1:00pm

Humanities 1, Room 210 (registration) + Zoom (Registration)

Join Jason Weidemann, Editorial Director at the University of Minnesota Press, for a “bootcamp” workshop, geared toward graduate students, post docs, and early career scholars working on their first books. Together we’ll discuss information on the editorial process – how to talk to editors, revising the dissertation, and proposals.

Time will be left for sharing current works and what presses attendees might look into. Jason’s afternoon itinerary allows for additional one-on-one consultations to practice pitching works, etc. To schedule a time, contact: colleen@ucsc.edu.

Please register in advance. 

A Zoom option is also available, please register.

Jason Weidemann, Editorial Director

Jason Weidemann seeks manuscripts that make field-defining interventions in their core disciplines, contribute to interdisciplinary conversations, and communicate to readers beyond the academy, including activists, policymakers, community members, and general readers. His broad interests in Native and indigenous studies includes literary studies, the social sciences, legal studies, and education. He also acquires works in cultural and human geography, science and technology studies, anthropology, and sociology. Special interests include environmental politics, multispecies ethnography, urban studies, global flows of labor and capital, and Asian studies. Of specific interest are manuscripts that examine the social and racial dimensions of medicine and science. Proposals for translations from Japanese are welcomed, specifically science fiction and critical theory. He is also interested in manuscripts on the social aspects of video games and digital communication.

Subject areas: anthropology, Asian studies, media studies, geography, Native and Indigenous studies, sociology, science and technology

Series: Indigenous Americas, Diverse Economies and Liveable Worlds, Muslim International

Co-hosted by the UCSC Science & Justice Research Center, the Humanities Institute, and the Division of Graduate Studies.

May 08, 2025 | Public Research Action Network: Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge – CANCELLED

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Thursday, May 08, 2025

6:00 – 7:30 pm 

Humanities 1, Room 210 (This month’s meeting has been cancelled).

Join the newly-created Public Research Action Network!

Building on the momentum from the highly successful Stand up for Science UCSC rallies held in March 2025, faculty have formed a group that will meet regularly with the slogan “Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge”. The goal is to keep up with the changing landscape regarding publicly-based research across all disciplines. The format is collaborative, with a plan for ~30-45 minutes of sharing some current events and updates, and ~45 minutes of action—oriented outreach plans including possibly letter and op-ed writing, working on communications to the UCSC Academic Senate and/or administrators, connecting with state and federal leaders, or other ideas to be crafted together. Meetings will take place once/month on the 2nd Thursday alternating between main campus and the Coast Science Campus.

Parking at the Coastal Science Campus is available with no permits after 5pm.

May 08, 2025 | Nauenberg History of Science Lecture with Jessica Riskin

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Thursday, May 08, 2025

5:00-7:00pm (registration)

Seymour Center, La Feliz Room

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was the Professor of Insects and Worms at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Living through the storms of the French Revolution and Napoleonic period, he founded biology, coining the term to name a new science devoted to all and only living things, and authored the first theory of evolution. Lamarck’s science was foundational to modern biology, yet its radicalism – he usurped God’s monopoly on Creation and re-assigned it to mortal, living beings – brought him and his ideas plenty of trouble. During Lamarck’s lifetime, Napoleon and his scientific inner circle hated him and did what they could to undermine him. Charles Darwin then adopted central elements of Lamarck’s theory, but after Darwin’s death, his most influential followers re-interpreted his theory to eradicate all traces of Lamarckism, rendering organisms once again the passive objects of outside forces, allowing room for an omnipotent God working behind the scenes. This conception of living organisms as passive in the evolutionary process has remained dominant since the turn of the twentieth century. In contrast, in Lamarck’s theory, living beings were active, creative, self-making and world-making. Elements of this very different conception of living organisms have recently, gradually been returning to mainstream biology in fields such as niche construction and epigenetic inheritance. The lecture will present Lamarck’s radical, embattled, and perhaps re-emerging approach to living things, their evolutionary and ecological agency, and the science that studies them.

Jessica Riskin is Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University where she teaches modern European history and the history of science. Her work examines the changing nature of scientific explanation, the relations of science, culture and politics, and the history of theories of life and mind. Her books include The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick\ (2016), which was awarded the 2021 Patrick Suppes Prize in the History of Science from the American Philosophical Society, and Science in the Age of Sensibility (2002), which received the American Historical Association’s J. Russell Major prize for best book in French history. She is a regular contributor to various publications including Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.

May 08, 2025 | Shazeda Ahmed on Artificial Intelligence (Re)Invents Itself: AI Safety and the Rise of Epistemic Monoculture

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Thursday, May 08, 2025

11:40am – 1:15 pm

Rachel Carson College 301 + Zoom (registration)

On Thursday, May 08 at 11:40 am, you are invited to gather in Rachel Carson College 301 or on Zoom for a talk with UC Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellow Shazeda Ahmed on Artificial Intelligence (Re)Invents Itself: AI Safety and the Rise of Epistemic Monoculture.

How did speculation about artificial general intelligence (AGI) transform from a niche thought experiment into a premise that policymakers and news media treat as an inevitability? Where did the idea of AI as an ‘existential risk’ to human life emerge?
The emerging field of “AI safety” has attracted public attention and large infusions of capital to support its implied promise: deployment of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems while reducing their gravest risks. Ideas from effective altruism, longtermism, and the study of existential risk are foundational to this new field. In this talk, Dr. Shazeda Ahmed shows how overlapping communities interested in these ideas merged to pursue what they refer to as “field-building,” and how this is sustained through mutually reinforcing community-building and knowledge production practices at four sites in this community’s epistemic culture: 1) online community-building through career advising and web forums; 2) AI forecasting; 3) AI safety research; and 4) prize competitions. She will then share preliminary findings from an interview study with members of the epistemic community who work on the “alignment problem” of attempting to align AI systems with human values. The dispersal of the AI safety epistemic community throughout industry, academia, and policy organizations ensures their continued input into global discourse about AI. Understanding the epistemic culture that fuses their moral convictions and knowledge claims is crucial to evaluating these claims, which are gaining influence in critical, rapidly changing debates about the harms of AI and how to mitigate them.

Co-hosted by the Sociology Department, the Science & Justice Research Center, and the UCSC Data + Ethics Working Group.

Shazeda Ahmed is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral (Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program) fellow at UCLA’s Center on Race and Digital Justice. She completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley’s School of Information, and was previously a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Shazeda has been a research fellow at Upturn, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) Institute, and NYU’s AI Now Institute.

Shazeda’s research investigates relationships between the state, the firm, and society in the US-China geopolitical rivalry over AI, with implications for information technology policy and human rights. Her work draws from science and technology studies, ranging from her dissertation on the state-firm co-production of China’s social credit system, to her research on the epistemic culture and knowledge production practices in the emerging field of AI safety.