Past Events

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).

May 22, 2023 | Book Launch! Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean

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Monday, May 22, 2023

1:00 – 3:00pm

Humanities 1, 210 +  Zoom (Registration)

Book Cover for Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2022)

Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2022)

Celebrate the launch of Associate Professor of Sociology Camilla Hawthorne’s new book, Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2022)! Contesting Race and Citizenship explores the politics of Blackness and citizenship in Italy. It examines the ways in which the Italian-born children of African immigrants have mobilized for a reform of Italian citizenship law in the context of the Eurozone economic crisis and the southern European refugee emergency. The book represents one of the first ever in-depth studies of Black Italian political mobilizations in Italy. Associate Professor Marisol LeBrón (feminist studies) will provide a welcome, Graduate Student Theresa Hice-Fromille (sociology) will provide introductions, and Associate Professors Debbie Gould (sociology) and Savannah Shange (anthropology) will serve as discussants.

More information can be found at: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501762291/contesting-race-and-citizenship/.

The open-access ebook version can be downloaded at: https://d119vjm4apzmdm.cloudfront.net/open-access/pdfs/9781501762307.pdf

Camilla Hawthorne (she/they) is Associate Professor of Sociology and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She is a faculty affiliate of the Science & Justice Research Center, the Legal Studies Program, and the new Visualizing Abolition Certificate Program, and co-founded the UCSC Black Geographies Lab. Camilla also serves as program director and faculty member for the Black Europe Summer School in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her work addresses the racial politics of migration and citizenship and the insurgent geographies of the Black Mediterranean. Camilla is co-editor of the volumes The Black Mediterranean: Bodies, Borders, and Citizenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2023), and is author of Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2022).

Co-Sponsored by the departments of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Sociology, the History of Art of Visual Cultures’ Visual Media Cultures Colloquium series, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

May 15, 2023 | BME80G Series: Hank Greely on “Weird Sh!t: Organoids, Chimeras, and Embryo Models”

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Wednesday, May 15, 2023

5:20 – 7:00 pm 

Classroom Unit 2 (map)

On Monday, May 15 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 Hank Greely on “Weird Sh!t: Organoids, Chimeras, and Embryo Models” – a panel discussion will follow.

Henry T. (Hank) Greely is Professor by courtesy of Genetics, Stanford School of Medicine; Director, Center for Law and the Biosciences; Director, Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society; and Chair, Steering Committee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics. Greely specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to genetics, assisted reproduction, neuroscience, or stem cell research.