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.

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.

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

Link to the live stream, or listen below.

Welcome to the Pandemicene Podcast. Today we welcome you to a conversation with Martha Kenney, recorded on September 22nd, 2020. Dr. Kenney is an Associate Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Department at San Francisco State University, and an interdisciplinary scholar in the science, technology, and society hub there. In this conversation, we touch on many topics, from the fables of individualism that have dominated popular discourse around the COVID-19 pandemic, to the importance of media literacy, to the role that speculative fiction can play in processing our current reality and opening space up to imagine new worlds. Our conversation begins with Dr. Kenney telling us about how she has guided her attention throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and how she has responded thus far.

Guest Bios:

Martha Kenney (Ph.D. History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz) is an Associate Professor in the Women and Gender Studies department at San Francisco State University. She is a feminist science studies scholar whose research explores the poetics and politics of biological storytelling. Her current project examines and intervenes in the narratives emerging from the new field of environmental epigenetics, which studies how signals from the environment affect gene expression. Specifically, she looks at how assumptions about gender, race, class and sexuality influence the design of epigenetic experiments on model organisms and how we understand the relationship between bodies and environments. She has recent and forthcoming articles in Social Studies of Science, Science as Culture, Biosocieties and Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. Dr. Kenney teaches courses on the politics of science, technology, medicine and the environment. Dr. Kenney was a founding graduate student researcher with the UC Santa Cruz Science & Justice Working Group and a fellow of the Science & Justice Training Program.

Works Cited in Interview:

Penkler, Michael; Ruth Müller; Martha Kenney; and Mark Hanson. “Back to normal? Building community resilience after COVID-19.” The Lancet: Diabetes & Endocrinology. August 2020.

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.

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, November 29th, 6:30 – 7 pm PST.

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

Welcome to the Pandemicene podcast where we attempt to create knowledge that orients us towards justice at this critical historical juncture. On May 13th, 2020, we spoke with Dr. Owain Williams, Lecturer in International Relations and Global Security at the University of Leeds, and a former Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. Dr. Williams is a political economist of global health, who focuses on health policy and intellectual property rights and access to medicines. We talked about his COVID Diaries project, privatization of the aged care sector, the pandemic as a crisis of capitalism, and the necessity for universal health coverage policies. Though much time has passed and the pandemic has evolved, we hope to think together with our listeners about which of Dr. Williams’s thoughts and predictions have been accurate and useful, and which parts we all need to think anew.

Guest Bio:

Dr. Owain Williams is a Lecturer in International Relations and Global Security at the University of Leeds, and a former Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He is an expert on the politics and political economy of health policy, and on intellectual property rights and access to medicines. He worked for the UNDP as a consultant on this area in 2014. He has published on access to medicines and global health governance, and new actors in health. His work includes, with Adrian Kay (eds.) Global Health Governance: Crisis, Institutions and Political Economy (Palgrave 2009); Partnerships and Foundations in Global Health Governance with Simon Rushton (eds.) ((Palgrave 2011), New Political Economy of Pharmaceuticals in the Global South (Palgrave 2013); and The Transformation of Global Health Governance (Palgrave 2014).​ He manages a range of projects on testing with the Queensland Chair in HIV and STIs and works in the broad area of global health governance from a platform of community engagement. He is convener of the Pacific Health Governance workshop and Research Network.

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.

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, November  22nd, 6:30 – 7 pm PST.

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

On August 24th, 2020, we spoke with Erin McElroy about housing justice, landlord tech and surveillance, and the role of AI in this new world shaped by the pandemic. McElroy earned their doctorate of Feminist Studies from UC Santa Cruz, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at New York University’s AI Now Institute. Due to the urban soundscape of New York City, we decided to edit out some of the segments from this Zoom interview that were important but too challenging to hear clearly, including McElroy’s introduction to the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. In early 2021, SJRC will help McElroy celebrate the launch of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s newly released book: Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance, published by PM Press.

Guest Bio:

Erin McElroy is a postdoctoral researcher at New York University’s AI Now Institute, and cofounder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. Erin earned a doctoral degree in Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on the politics of space, race, and technology in Romania and Silicon Valley, and is an editor of Radical Housing Journal.

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.

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, November 15th, 6:30 – 7 pm PST.

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

Welcome to the Pandemicene podcast! Today we speak with Dr. Rebecca DuBois, associate professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. We ask her thoughts on the many issues involved in developing a COVID-19 vaccine, including the biological details of what a vaccine might look like and be capable of,  the necessary phases of clinical trials, and bioethical issues of equity and fairness that will arise during eventual vaccine distribution. Note that this interview was conducted on September 3rd, 2020, and much has changed over the past two months, including the U.S. political landscape and breakthroughs in vaccine development.

Guest Bio:

Rebecca DuBois is an associate professor of Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She runs the DuBois Lab on campus, which seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms of virus infections, and to use this information to develop new vaccines and antiviral therapeutics.

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.

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, November 8th, 6:30 – 7 pm PST.

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

Welcome to the Pandemicene Podcast. Today we share a conversation with Professor Sharon Daniel, whose work has dramatically shifted in response to the pandemic.  Sharon Daniel is a professor of Film and Digital Media at UCSC. In addition to teaching at the university, Daniel also does research on various social justice issues in order to create interactive websites and other media projects for the general public. Her current work focuses on the criminal justice system and Indigenous communities in Alaska. She strives to give a platform to those historically marginalized. Daniel talks to us about what incarceration during the pandemic looks like and shares details on her newest project – Exposed – documenting COVID-19 in prisons and jails around the country. Visit the newly launched project site at unjustlyexposed.com!

Guest Bio:

Sharon Daniel is a Professor of Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz, and a media artist who produces interactive and participatory documentaries focused on issues of social, economic, environmental and criminal justice. She builds online archives and interfaces that make the stories of marginalized and disenfranchised communities available across social, cultural and economic boundaries. Daniel’s most recent project – Exposed – documents the ravaging spread of COVID-19 through jails and prisons in the U.S. Detailed descriptions of Daniel’s works can be found at http://sharondaniel.net.

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.