Author Archives: Colleen Stone

November 01, 2023 | Bias at Work? Artificial Intelligence in the Recruitment Process

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Wednesday, November 01, 2023

4:00 – 5:30pm

SJRC Common Room, Oakes College 231 +  Zoom (Registration)

SAVE-the-DATE!

Join Science & Justice Affiliated faculty Warren Sack (Film & Digital Media) and guest Roger Søraa in a conversation with Science & Justice on artificial Intelligence in the recruitment process. We will gather in the SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231, and have Zoom available, register here.

How is Artificial Intelligence (AI) being used and impacting recruitment processes? This talk provides insight from a European research project on AI-enhanced recruitment processes and what sociotechnical dangers that can lead to. AI is increasingly being used to find, assess, and hire candidates for a wide variety of jobs, but with upcoming regulations and strict privacy concerns, what can we expect from AI in Human Resource Management (HRM) practices? Is AI helping, helpful, or making us helpless? Who is the ideal candidate for a job, and how are (European) companies dealing with issues connected to diversity and discriminatory biased hirings? This STS-based analysis from Norway will aim to shed some light on this for an American audience. The research is drawn from the EU-funded project BIAS, more information available at www.biasproject.eu.

Dr. Roger Andre Søraa is an Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His main research interests are the digitalization and robotization of society, especially on work and health, its epistemological consequences, and inclusion and diversity issues. He leads the research group “Digitalization and Robotization of Society” (DigiKULT). He is the author of AI for Diversity, published by Routledge in 2023, and co-author of the forthcoming Digitalization: Societal Change, User Perspectives, and Critical Thinking. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6800-0558

November 15, 2023 | Works-in-Progress with Anila Daulatzai

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Wednesday, November 15, 2023

4:00-5:30 PM

Oakes 231 + Zoom Registration

Join SJRC scholars for an open discussion of works-in-progress! This is a wonderful chance to engage with one another’s ideas, and support our own internal work! At this session, we will hear from postdoctoral fellow Anila Daulatzai on her ethnographic fieldwork with UNICEF, WHO and the GAVI vaccine alliance in Switzerland towards her research on global health architectures and polio.

Anila Daulatzai is a political and medical anthropologist. She has taught in prisons, and in universities across three continents. Her past and current research projects look at widowhood, heroin use, and polio through the lens of serial war and the US Empire in Afghanistan, and Pakistan. She has published articles in Jadaliyya, Al-Jazeera, several academic journals, and edited volumes and is a contributing member to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, since 2014. She is currently completing her book manuscript provisionally titled War and What Remains. Everyday Life in Contemporary Kabul, Afghanistan. At UCSC, Anila is a postdoctoral fellow in the history department working on the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar “Race, Empire, and the Environments of Biomedicine,” a project co-led by SJRC faculty affiliate Jennifer Derr (History) and SJRC Founding Director Jenny Reardon (Sociology). More information can be found at: https://raceempirebiomedicine.sites.ucsc.edu/.

October 11, 2023 | SJRC Meet & Greet

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Wednesday, October 11, 2023

4:00-6:00 PM

SJRC Common Room Oakes 231 + Zoom Registration

Please join us for a beginning of quarter social hour. In addition to a chance to celebrate the new academic year and enjoy each other’s company, we will welcome new members to our community, and welcome back others.

This will be a great chance for everyone to meet and foster emerging collaborations! Attendees are highly encouraged to bring and share their objects of study as it is a fun and helpful way to find intersecting areas of interest. Some previous objects shared have been: soil samples, a piece of the Berlin wall, bamboo, newly launched books, a stick, sugar, human blood, a human liver, and food.

Faculty or students interested in science and justice who want to learn more about SJRC collaborative projects, the Training Program, or would like to affiliate with Science & Justice are highly encouraged to join us in person or over Zoom.

December 06, 2023 | SJTP Graduate Training Program Informational Meeting

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Wednesday, December 06 2023

12:00-1:00 PM

Graduate Student Commons Fireside Lounge + Zoom (Registration)

Join us for an Informational Meeting on our internationally recognized interdisciplinary Graduate Training and Certificate Program.

Our Science & Justice Training Program (SJTP) is a globally unique initiative that trains doctoral students to work across the disciplinary boundaries of the natural and social sciences, engineering, humanities and the arts. Through the SJTP we at UC Santa Cruz currently teach new generations of PhD students the skills of interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical deliberation, and public communication. Students in the program design collaborative research projects oriented around questions of science and justice. These research projects not only contribute to positive outcomes in the wider world, they also become the templates for new forms of problem-based and collaborative inquiry within and beyond the university.

As SJTP students graduate they take the skills and experience they gained in the training program into the next stage of their career in universities, industry, non-profits, and government.

Opportunities include graduate Certificate Program, experience organizing and hosting colloquia series about the research projects, mentorship, potential for additional research funding and training in conducting interdisciplinary research at the intersections of science and society.

WINTER 2024 COURSE:

Science & Justice: Experiments in Collaboration (SOCY/BME/CRES/FMST 268A), Assist. Prof. Kriti Sharma, scheduled Monday’s 2:30-5:30 pm, Rachel Carson College, 301. Enrollment in the course is required for participating in the Training Program. Attending the informational meeting is strongly encouraged, but not required.

Students from all disciplines are encouraged to attend. Prior graduate fellows have come from every campus Division. 22 Represented Departments: Anthropology, Biomolecular Engineering, Digital Arts & New Media, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Feminist Studies, Film & Digital Media, History, History of Consciousness, Latin American & Latino Studies, Literature, Math, Philosophy, Physics, Politics, Psychology, Social Documentation, Sociology, and Visual Studies.

Past collaborative research projects have included:

  • Physicists working with small scale farmers to develop solar greenhouses scaled to local farming needs.
  • Colloquia about the social and political consequences of scientific uncertainties surrounding topics such as climate change research, food studies, genomics and identity.
  • Examining how art can empower justice movements.
  • Working with local publics to improve African fishery science.

For more information on the Science & Justice Training Program, visit: https://scijust.ucsc.edu/about-sjrc/sjtp/.

Join the SJRC at the October 11th Meet & Greet from 4:00-6:00!

June 20, 2023 | Incorporating Indigenous Ethics and World Views in STEM Education

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Tuesday, June 20, 2023

10:00-11:00 AM

PSB-240 + Zoom Registration (PDF poster)

Globally, the value of indigenous knowledge and world views are increasingly being recognised, as the limitations of ‘Western’ science are being realised. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, mātauranga Māori – the traditional knowledge system of indigenous Māori peoples – and associated tikanga Māori (ethics), is being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate degree programmes at the University of Otago such as Genetics, Agricultural Innovation, Statistics, Data Science and Bioethics. This is being driven by a range of factors including renaissance of Māori culture, tribally-based litigation settlements with the NZ government of historical grievances arising from colonisation, a steadily growing Māori population, more inclusive research policies aimed at reducing health and socio-economic inequities, as well as a growing Māori economic asset base – primarily in primary and tourism sectors – estimated to be $NZ 50-70 Billion.

In this seminar I will provide an overview of the content I (co)teach in the aforementioned degree programmes, along with learning outcomes associated with individual courses and the requisite graduate competencies in their respective degree programmes. I will also provide descriptions of teaching techniques such as ‘flipped classes’ where students are asked to evaluate research proposals from the perspectives of indigenous communities using knowledge of tikanga Māori, along with previously published guidelines for appropriate engagement with Māori communities. Although this content has only been introduced over the past 3-4 years, we expect graduates will not only be better equipped to interact with indigenous communities, they will also have a more holistic understanding of the broader issues associated with the scientific knowledge and skills they have acquired.

Dr Phillip Wilcox Māori tribal affiliations are Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, and Rongomaiwahine. He is an Associate Professor in the University of Otago’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, with experience in applied genomics and statistical genetics. He is also an Affiliate of the University of Otago’s Bioethics Centre and is the current convenor of MapNet, a NZ-wide collective of gene mapping scientists, and led the Virtual Institute for Statistical Genetics from 2008 to 2013.

For almost 20 years, Wilcox has worked in the interface of genetic sciences and te ao Māori (the Māori world), and co-leads two genomics-based projects focussing on Māori health. He also spent almost 10 years as technical advisor to his iwi, Ngāti Rakaipaaka, regarding the Rakaipaaka Health and Ancestry Study. A/Prof Wilcox has also worked on genetics of plant species (particularly forest trees) and human diseases. He teaches tikanga (Māori bioethics)-based frameworks in science courses at both graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as statistics and quantitative genetics, and teaches genetics-related content to pre-NCEA high school students in marae-based learning environments in the University of Otago’s Science Wānanga initiative. He co-initiated the Summer Internship of iNdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) Aotearoa, and until recently was a member of the Health Research Council of New Zealand’s Ethics Committee which oversees all of NZ’s institutional and regional ethics committees.

Co-sponsored by The Genomics Institute and Baskin Engineering.

June 07, 2023 | BME80G Series: Susan Reverby on “Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and it’s Legacy”

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Wednesday, June 07, 2023

5:20 – 7:00 pm 

Classroom Unit 2 (map) or Zoom (registration TBD)

On Wednesday, June 07 at 5:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Susan Reverby on “Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and it’s Legacy” – a panel discussion will follow.

A zoom option is available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Register for the Zoom link here (TBD).

Susan M. Reverby is Marion Butler McLean Professor Emerita in the History of Ideas; Professor Emerita of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Reverby is a historian of American health care, women, race, and public health with a focus on equality and ethics.

June 05, 2023 | BME80G Series: Alexandra Minna Stern on “Eugenics, State Harm, and Reparations in California: An Unfinished History”

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Monday, June 05, 2023

5:20 – 7:00 pm 

Classroom Unit 2 (map)

On Monday, June 05 at 5:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Alexandra Minna Stern on “Eugenics, State Harm, and Reparations in California: An Unfinished History.”

Alexandra Minna Stern is the Humanities Dean and Professor of English and History, and at the Institute for Society and Genetics, at the University of California, Los Angeles. Stern founded and co-directs the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab, an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research team that is reconstructing and analyzing the history of eugenics and sterilization in five U.S. states (Michigan, North Carolina, Iowa, Utah, and California).

May 31, 2023 | BME80G Series: Marcy Darnovsky on “Should We Genetically Modify Our Children?”

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Wednesday, May 31, 2023

5:20 – 7:00 pm 

Zoom (registration)

On Wednesday, May 31 at 5:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Marcy Darnovsky on “Should We Genetically Modify Our Children?” – a panel discussion will follow.

Register for the Zoom link here.

Suggested Reading: Geneva Statement on Heritable Human Genome Editing: The Need for Course Correction, Trends in Biotechnology, Volume 38, ISSUE 4, P351-354, April 2020.

Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, is Executive Director at the Center for Genetics and Society, a nonprofit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area that works to bring perspectives grounded in social justice, human rights, and healthy equity to considerations of human genetic and assisted reproductive technologies. She speaks and writes widely on the societal implications of human biotechnologies. Her articles have appeared in scholarly and general-audience publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Nature, and Trends in Biotechnology; she is co-editor of Beyond Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics (with Osagie K. Obasogie, University of California Press). She has appeared on dozens of television, radio, and online news shows; and has been cited in hundreds of news and magazine articles. Her PhD is from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

May 31-June 01, 2023 | Sawyer Seminar: Juan Sebastian Gil-Riaño on Stolen Evidence: Indigenous Children and Bio-historical narratives of the Western Hemisphere during the Cold War

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Wednesday, May 31, 2023

12:15-1:30 PM 

Humanities 1, Room 210

 

Thursday, June 01, 2023

12:15-1:45 PM 

Humanities 1, 210

On Wednesday, May 31 at 12:15pm in Humanities 1, rm. 210, Sawyer Seminar Speaker, Juan Sebastian Gil Riaño, will present on “Stolen Evidence: Indigenous Children and Bio-historical narratives of the Western Hemisphere during the Cold War.” 

This talk examines how anthropologists and human biologists used abducted Indigenous children in South America as sources of evidence for a variety of bio-historical research projects during the Cold War. From 1930 to 1970, human scientists studying the Aché — a traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherer group in Paraguay — used evidence derived from measuring, bleeding, and observing children in the service of research projects concerned with reconstructing global human migrations in the Western hemisphere. Through studies of Aché children and families, scientists like the French naturalist Jehan Albert Vellard, the U.S. human geneticist Carleton Gajdusek, and the French structural anthropologists Pierre and Helen Clastres discerned ancient patterns of migration by considering the diffusion of cultural and linguistic traits, the process of genetic drift in populations, and the immunological effects of European conquest. Yet many of the Aché children used in these studies had been abducted and sold as servants to neighboring ranchers. By highlighting the use of stolen Indigenous children as research objects in Cold War human diversity research, my talk uncovers the enduring and violent colonial structures that made this knowledge possible as well as the ethical and legal protocols and forms of Indigenous resistance that emerged in response.

Then, on Thursday, June 01 at 12:15pm in Humanities 1, rm. 210, Dr. Gil Riaño will lead a reading group on “Indigenous Health and Infrastructures of Race.” Both activities will be in-person only.

In the past few decades, biomedical researchers and human biologists have called for more ethical guidelines for conducting fieldwork on Indigenous groups in South America. Included among these proposals is a call for greater “epidemiological surveillance” of remote Indigenous groups with the aim of reducing health disparities. This bioethical concern is driven by an understanding of colonial history, which presumes that without biomedical intervention Indigenous groups inevitably succumb to European diseases upon contact. In this reading group, we will explore how such bioethical narratives are themselves a product of a deep-seated colonial project that Daniel Nemser has called “the Infrastructures of Race.”

Juan Sebastian Gil Riaño is an Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania focusing on scientific conceptions of race, culture, and indigeneity in the twentieth century. 

The “Race, Empire, and the Environments of Biomedicine” seminar series is supported by the Mellon Foundation, administered by The Humanities Institute (THI) at UC Santa Cruz, and presented in partnership with the Science & Justice Research Center. Learn more in this campus news article: UC Santa Cruz receives Mellon Foundation humanities grant to investigate race, biomedicine and on the “Race, Empire, and the Environments of Biomedicine” project website.

May 24, 2023 | Works-in-Progress with Lindsay Kelley on Baking Strange

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Wednesday, May 24, 2023

4:00-5:30 PM

SJRC Common Room Oakes 231 + Zoom Registration

Join SJRC scholars for an open discussion of works-in-progress! This is a wonderful chance to engage with one another’s ideas, and support our own internal work! At this session, we will hear from Science & Justice Visiting Scholar Lindsay Kelley and brainstorm approaches to a book project called, Baking Strange. Themes include: edible archives, everyday militarisms, recipe art, participatory methods, and digestive networks.

What exactly do we eat when we eat a biscuit? Everyday objects like biscuits contain unexpected, dense connections that illuminate material and cultural networks. Using taste and recipe formats as key methods, the multiyear research initiative Tasting History involves diverse publics in experiences of tasting and eating together. Five years into this Covid-disrupted project, Kelley has published several connected essays (refer to links below), has unfinished fieldwork, and have taken multiple approaches to the project’s three case studies: Anzac biscuits, hardtack, and frybread. As a book, Baking Strange, seeks to defamiliarize the Anzac biscuit recipe literature and its methods. Included works emerge from archival research at the Australian War Memorial and participatory taste workshops conducted by the artist in collaboration with the Kandos branch of the Country Women’s Association, Cementa, Inc, and editor and videographer David Ryan. Loaned tins and research ephemera document the ongoing multiyear research project Tasting History: Biscuits, Culture, and National Identity.

This work was produced on unceded Gadigal-Bidjigal, Ngunnawal-Ngambri, Wiradjuri, and Cabrogal land. Research was conducted in compliance with UNSW Human Research Ethics protocol HC190344, now Australian National University Human Research Ethics protocol 2022/478. A related exhibit, Aftertaste, will run from April-August 2023 at Fairfield City Museum & Gallery in NSW, Australia. A biscuit baking workshop will take place in July.

Lindsay Kelley is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Arts & Social Sciences School of Art & Design at Australian National University and a UC Santa Cruz Alum (MFA Digital Arts & New Media, Ph.D History of Consciousness).