Archive
Fall 2025
| Date | Speaker | Talk Title |
| Sept 12 | Elaine Short Tufts, Computer Science | Human-Centered AI for Accessible and Assistive Robotics: Towards a Disability-Centered HRI |
| Sept 19 | Jess Keiser Tufts, English | AI, Art, and Immanuel Kant |
| Sept 26 | Katie Ulrich Harvard Academy for Intl + Area Studies | Plant(ation)-Based Fuels & Plastics: What Renewable Bioproducts Say About Our Approach to Climate Change |
| Oct 3 | Becca Lewis MIT, Comparative Media Studies | Reactionary Futurism: The Rise of Technofascism in Silicon Valley |
| Oct 10 | Anncy Thresher Northeastern, Philosophy/Public Policy | Killing Nature to Save It: Conservation Science, Biotechnology, and Ethical Extermination |
| Oct 17 | Sarah Pinto Tufts, Anthropology | Death and Decision-Making in Indian Oncology |
| Oct 24 | Alex Collins Tufts, Community Health | Using Rapid Ethnography to Understand Place, Space, and Overdose Risk |
| Oct 31 | Christopher O’Neill Deakin University, Media & STS | The Face of the Child, the Face of the Corpse, and the Productive Illegibility of the Biometric Trace |
| Nov 14 | Adriana Craciun BU English, Radcliffe | Now and Forever: The Time of Plants in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault |
| Dec 5 | Larry McGrath Researcher & Author Lora Koycheva Brandenburg, Technoscience Matt Artz UPenn | Anthropology & AI an STS Book Talk |
Spring 2025
| Jan 24 | Os Keyes UMass Lowell | Research, Regret and Transgender Medicine: Bioethical Lessons from the University of Washington Gender Identity Clinic |
| Jan 31 | Mat Rappaport Tufts University | AI, ML, and Reality: Navigating Truth in a Probabilistic World |
| Feb 7 | Jill Weinberg & Peter Nadel Tufts University | The Algorithm and the Advocate: AI and the Legal System |
| Feb 21 | Marcos Luna Salem State | ‘G’ Is for Justice or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Map |
| Feb 28 | Cameron Conner Community Organizer | Building Climate Resilience Through Community Organizing |
| Mar 7 | Oliver Rollins MIT | The Brain, Violence, and The Question of Race (Again!) |
| Mar 28 | Brian Epstein Tufts University | What is social construction, and how does it work? |
| Apr 4 | Leticia Castillo Brache Boston University | Hidden Narratives in Paleontology: Toward Ethical and Inclusive Practices |
| Apr 18 | Yume Menghe Xu Tufts University | Maker and Crafter Identities: Who Decides Whether I am a “Legitimate” Engineer? |
| Apr 25 | Fatima Hussain Tufts University | Designing Resilient Microbial Ecosystems for Global Vaginal Health |
Fall 2024
| Sept 13 | Amod Lele Northeastern University | Technology Ethics at the Ethics Institute |
| Sept 20 | Ben Chrisinger Tufts University | Getting to Root Causes: Why Equity Must Be at the Center of Planning and Public Health |
| Sept 27 | Eric Gordon Emerson College | Generative Listening |
| Oct 4 | Tiffany Joseph Northeastern University | (Not) All In: Race, Immigration, and Healthcare Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare |
| Oct 18 | James J. Fisher Generous Listening and Dialogue Initiative, Tufts | The Sound is the Power: Sonic Politics and Audio Technology in West Africa |
| Oct 25 | Kelly Siegel-Stechler CIRCLE, Tufts | Youth Voting: Power, Place, and Politics |
| Nov 1 | Pariroo Rattan Harvard University | Can the poor have privacy? Digitization and the making of moral economic citizens in contemporary India |
| Nov 15 | Revati Masilamani Tufts University | Health Literacy and Trust in Science |
| Nov 22 | Bonnie Bain & Barbara Kelley Salem Alliance for the Environment | Community Benefits Agreements and Offshore Wind in Salem, MA |
| Dec 6 | Julia Gouvea Tufts University | Beyond Misconceptions: How Dynamic Models of Cognition Help Explain Student Reasoning about Natural Selection |
Spring 2024
| Jan 26 | Anna Gibson MIT | Entrepreneurial Moderation: Managing Speech in the Age of Influence |
| Feb 2 | Ariel Ludwig Brandeis | Carceral & Abolitionist STS: Technology Behind Bars |
| Feb 9 | Andrew Lea Brigham and Women’s Hospital | Digitizing Diagnosis: Medicine, Minds, and Machines in Twentieth Century America |
| Feb 16 | Jamee Elder Tufts | What is a ‘direct’ image of a shadow?: A history and epistemology of ‘directness’ in black hole imaging |
| Mar 1 | Elena Denia Tufts | Bad Science: When the Ideal of Science Breaks Down |
| Mar 8 | Kaylla Cantilina Tufts | Exploring narrative inquiry amidst a positivist paradigm |
| Mar 29 | Crystal Lee MIT | Searching for ‘alt-tech’ platforms and the parallel economy |
| Apr 5 | Adam “Kaz” Kaszynski IUE-CWA Local 201 | |
| Apr 12 | Margaret Gatonye UMass Boston | Turbines and Nets: The Intersection of Offshore Wind, Fisheries, and Communities |
| Apr 19 | Dave Miller Tufts | The least of the problems with automated driving is the driving part |
Fall 2023
| Sept 15 | Alexis Shore Boston University | We Hit Turbulence: The Role of Interpersonal and Platform-Based Privacy Rules on Screenshot Collection and Sharing |
| Sept 22 | Nick Juravich UMass Boston | Labor and the Politics of Knowledge Production |
| Sept 29 | Penn Loh Tufts University | Community Labor United and the Green Justice Coalition |
| Oct 6 | Paul Rubinson Bridgewater State | Science and Human Rights: A History |
| Oct 13 | Andy Stuhl Tufts University | Sonic Automation |
| Oct 20 | Avneet Hira Boston College | Affordances and disaffordances of technology and design in engineering education |
| Oct 27 | Tina
Wei Harvard University | The History of Fatigue in the Workplace |
| Nov 3 | Elena Sobrino Tufts University | Living with Crisis: Reflections on Fieldwork in Flint |
| Nov 17 | Sancha Medwinter UMass Amherst | How Race, Class, Space, and Institutions Intersect during Urban Disasters |
| Dec 1 | Beth Rosenberg Tufts University | The Politics of Work: Lessons from decades in awful workplaces |
Spring 2023
| Jan 27 | Joe Auner Tufts University | Feedback as Interface |
| Feb 3 | Nick Rabb Tufts University | Modeling Disinformation and How the Models Model Us |
| Feb 10 | Thuy Linh Tu New York University | An Archive of Feet: Military Dermatology and the Science of Beauty |
| Feb 17 | Christina Agapakis Ginkgo Bioworks | Corporate STS: breaking silos and working sociotechnically |
| Feb 24 | Sarah Sobieraj Tufts University | Digital Hate, Political Voice, and Social Inequalities |
| Mar 3 | D.E. Wittkower Old Dominion University | What even are cats?: A phenomenological investigation |
| Mar 10 | Tatiana Chudakova Tufts University | Antiviral Viralities: Navigating Rumor, Shortage, and Drug Efficacies in Russia |
| Mar 31 | Anthony Kwame Harrison Virginia Tech | From Hypodescent to Musical Segregation: The Racialized Stakes of Sonic Belonging and Estrangement |
| Apr 7 | Giulia Taurino Northeastern University | Training ML Models for the Study of Culture |
| Apr 14 | Justin Hollander Tufts University | First City on Mars: An Urban Planner’s Guide to Settling the Red Planet |
| Apr 28 | Hi’ilei Hobart Yale University | Thermal Sovereignties |
Fall 2022
| Sept 16 | Nick Seaver Tufts University | Computing Taste: Care and Control in Algorithmic Music Recommendation |
| Sept 23 | Chloe Ahmann Cornell University | How Waste Became Renewable in Baltimore: A Cautionary Tale |
| Sept 30 | Lukas Rieppel Brown University | Locating the Central Asiatic Expedition: Epistemic Imperialism in Early 20th Century Paleontology |
| Oct 7 | Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou University College London | Speculative Communities: Living with Uncertainty in a Financialized World |
| Oct 21 | Adam Romero UW Bothell | Industrial Chemicals, Public Finance, and the Production of Investable Farmland |
| Oct 28 | Desen Ozkan, Bridget
Moynihan & Sam Fried Tufts University | Black Boxes and Green Jobs: Modeling Offshore Wind Farms |
| Nov 4 | Michelle Spektor Tufts University | Measuring the Nation: Eugenics, Biometrics, and British Policymaking in the early 20th Century |
| Nov 18 | Jamie Lorimer Oxford | What do beavers tell us about life in the Anthropocene? |
| Dec 2 | Joshua Evans Danish Technical University | From critiquing science to doing science differently: stories from the culinary frontier |
| Dec 9 | Megan Mueller Tufts University | The Science and Practice of Human-Animal Interaction |
Spring 2022
| Jan 28 | Doug Rogers Yale University | How, Why, and When to Make Oil into Food |
| Feb 4 | Jonathan Sterne McGill University | There Are Never Enough Spoons: Politics of Fatigue |
| Feb 11 | Ahmer Arif University of Texas at Austin | Staying with the trouble –– A look at how disinformation campaigns have been rewired for the digital age |
| Feb 18 | Alistair Sponsel Tufts University | Barriers and Guardians: A History of Ideas and Emotions about Coral Reefs |
| Feb 25 | Deepa Rao MIT | How International Political Treaties Govern Scientific Research in Antarctica |
| Mar 4 | Jess Keiser Tufts University | The Great Sensorium of the World |
| Mar 11 | Jason Ludwig Cornell University | Deluges of Data: ‘Crisis,’ Technology, and Disaster STS |
| Mar 18 | Daniel Souleles Copenhagen Business School | Algorithms, automation, and alienation make the market go whoosh! |
| Apr 1 | Joe Masco University of Chicago | Anticipatory Knowledge and Planetary Futures |
| Apr 15 | Alisha Rankin Tufts University | Diabolical Poisoners: Witchcraft, Poison, and Medicine in Early Modern Europe |
| Apr 29 | Anna Jabloner Harvard University | The Gendered Work of Bio-graphy After Genomics |
Fall 2021
| Sept 17 | Siddharth Suri Microsoft Research | Ghost Work: The Labor that Powers AI |
| Sept 24 | Erika Szymanski Colorado State | Microbes, metaphors, and how rhetoric matters in STS |
| Oct 1 | Os Keyes University of Washington | How Audits Feel, How Audits Fail |
| Oct 8 | Projit Mukharji University of Pennsylvania | Genetic Exogeneity |
| Oct 15 | Jennifer Carroll North Carolina State University | The Lab in the Streets |
| Oct 22 | Christian Ross Tufts University | Public Engagement and Expertise in Heritable Human Genome Editing |
| Oct 29 | Liz P.Y. Chee National University Singapore | Introducing Mao’s Bestiary |
| Nov 5 | Lindsay Weinberg Purdue University | Education, Surveillance, and Power |
| Nov 12 | Raquel Velho Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | How Wheelchair Users Matter When We Think About Infrastructure and Transport |
| Nov 19 | Alyssa Battistoni Barnard College | Biosphere 1, Biosphere 2, and the Problem of Substitution |
| Dec 3 | Shannon Dosemagen Open Environmental Data Project | Leveraging the Knowledge Commons in suppport of environmental justice |
| Dec 10 | Jane Pryma University of Connecticut | Pain Management in the Shadow of the Opioid Crisis in the United States and France |
Spring 2021
| Feb 12 | Sarah Brayne UT Austin | Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing |
| Feb 19 | Aadita Chaudhury York University | Wilderness in the fire sciences |
| Feb 26 | Johnathan Flowers Worcester State | Sonzai-kan, jinba-ittai, and other lessons for STS from Japanese Aesthetics |
| Mar 5 | Desen Ozkan Tufts University | Interdisciplinarity and engineering, on paper vs. on the ground |
| Mar 12 | John Hartigan UT Austin | An Ethnographic Perspective on the Social Lives of Wild Horses |
| Mar 19 | STS at Tufts Thesis and Capstone Students | Student Thesis and Capstone Workshop |
| Apr 2 | Liam
Kofi Bright London School of Economics | Why do scientists lie – and what does W.E.B. Du Bois say we should do about it? |
| Apr 9 | Madina Agénor Tufts University | Incorporating Intersectionality into Population Health Research |
| Apr 16 | Porter White Harvard University | Mapping Stories in Literature in Life |
| Apr 23 | Robin Zebrowski Beloit College | Dr. Von Zoom and the Mole People of Pandemia |
| Apr 30 | Gus Andrews Author of Keep Calm and Log On | Disinformation, literacy, and trust |
Fall 2020
| Sept 18 | Nicole Nelson UW Madison | How we talk about reproducibility in science |
| Sept 25 | Jack Leff Virginia Tech | Police terror and securitizing the air |
| Oct 2 | June Jeon Tufts University | Studying scientists at work |
| Oct 9 | Karin Knudson Tufts University | Flavors of Uncertainty |
| Oct 16 | Saul Halfon Virginia Tech | Meat Inspection at the USDA & Thinking With Institutions |
| Oct 23 | Caleb Scoville Tufts University | Endangered Species Politics |
| Oct 30 | Danya Glabau NYU | Feminist STS In and Out of Academia |
| Nov 6 | Thea Riofrancos Providence College | A Globally Just Green New Deal |
| Nov 13 | Crystal Lee MIT | The Promises and Perils of Data Visualization |
| Nov 20 | Laura Alex Frye-Levine MIT | What happens when ecology and economics meet |
| Dec 4 | Ben Wilson Harvard | The Scientific Power Elite in the Age of Nuclear Weapons |
Spring 2020
| Jan 24 | Momin Malik Harvard | How STS Can Improve Data Science |
| Jan 31 | Heather Rosenfeld Tufts, MGGG | Farm Animals and Sanctuary Science |
| Feb 7 | Tarleton Gillespie Microsoft Research New England | Content Moderation, Everywhere |
| Feb 14 | Gabrielle Robbins MIT | Exploring the Pharmaceutical Industry “On the Ground” in Madagascar |
| Feb 21 | Malick Ghachem MIT | Is a Social Scientific Definition of Slavery Possible? |
| Feb 28 | Ben Wolfe Tufts | Making Model Microbiomes |
| Mar 6 | Stefan Helmreich MIT | Flipping the Ship |
| Mar 27 | Daniel
Dennett Tufts | The Information Arms Race |
| Apr 3 | Alex Blanchette Tufts | Porkopolis, or the State of Human Labor on American Factory Farms |
| Apr 10 | Jill Weinberg Tufts | Law, Doctors, and the Right-to-Die |
| Apr 17 | Eram Alam Harvard | The Care of Foreigners |
Fall 2019
| Sept 13 | Moon Duchin Tufts Math & STS | Math, Race, and Voting Rights |
| Sept 20 | Ben Green Harvard & AI Now | The Smart Enough City |
| Sept 24 | Ruha Benjamin Princeton African American Studies | A New Jim Code? |
| Oct 4 | Joe Auner Tufts Music & STS | Post/Human/Feedback |
| Oct 11 | Peter Levine Tufts Political Science & Tisch College | The Politics of Knowledge |
| Oct 18 | Zarin Machanda Tufts Anthropology & Biology | Chimpanzee Technology and Cultural Transmission |
| Oct 25 | Samantha Jo Fried Tisch College | Environmentalism/National Security in Remote Sensing |
| Nov 1 | Aidan Kestigian Tufts STS | Ethics and Decisions in the Case of Artificial Hearts |
| Nov 8 | Enoch Lambert Tufts Center for Cognitive Studies | ‘Conceptual Engineering’ in Philosophy |
| Nov 15 | Aloni Cohen BU CS & Law | Compelled Decryption and the Fifth Amendment |
| Nov 22 | James Murphy, Michael Hughes & Abiy Tasissa Tufts Math/CS | Algorithms and Explanations Panel |
| Dec 6 | Beth Semel MIT STS | ‘Vocal Biomarkers’ and the Engineering Approach to Mental Illness |
Spring 2019
| Jan 25 | Patrick Forber Tufts STS & Philosophy | Conflict, Convention, and the Origins of Ownership |
| Feb 1 | Christoph Riedl Northeastern Network Science | Learning from Mixed Signals |
| Feb 8 | Nick Seaver Tufts STS & Anthropology | Avidity and Difference in Algorithmic Recommendation |
| Feb 15 | Alisha Rankin Tufts STS & History | Testing Antidotes in Renaissance Europe |
| Feb 22 | Jennifer Hsieh Harvard Fairbank Center | “Do you hear that?” Sonic Encroachments and the Techno-Semiotic Ear |
| Mar 1 | Gili Vidan Harvard History of Science | Cryptography and the Politics of Decentralization |
| Mar 8 | Ricky
Crano Tufts English & STS | Swipe Life: Neoliberal Epistemology and the Digital Dispositif |
| Mar 15 | Evan Hepler-Smith BC History and Science & Tech | Do Molecules have Politics? |
| Mar 29 | Deirdre Loughridge Northeastern Music | Discourses of Nature and Technology in EDM-Pop Music |
| Apr 5 | Rory Smead Northeastern Philosophy | Spite, Inequity Aversion, and Revenge |
| Apr 12 | Jennifer Light MIT STS | Constructing the Sheltered Childhood |
| Apr 19 | Debbie Weinstein Brown American Studies | The Eugenics of War and Peace |
| Apr 26 | Jess Keiser Tufts STS & English | The Pineal Gland: A Comedy in Three Acts |
Fall 2018
| Sept 14 | Daryl DeFord MIT/Tufts | Mathematical Modeling of Social Connections |
| Sept 21 | Sheila Jasanoff Harvard Kennedy School | The Politics of Post-Truth |
| Sept 28 | Banu Subramaniam UMass WGSS | Decolonizing Botany |
| Oct 12 | John Basl & Jeff Behrends Northeastern Philosophy / Harvard Philosophy | Ethics and Autonomous Vehicles in Accident Scenarios |
| Oct 19 | Lisa Haushofer University of Toronto HPS | Food with Benefits |
| Oct 26 | Kurt Ralske Tufts SMFA | Actual Problems in Virtual Reality |
| Nov 2 | William San Martín WPI Humanities & Arts | Cold War Politics and the Struggle for Global Sustainability |
| Nov 9 | Jeannie Simms Tufts SMFA | Under the Sun: Photosensitive Art and Immigration |
| Nov 16 | Jenna Tonn Boston College STS | Boys in the Lab: The Culture of 19th-Century Experimental Biology |
| Nov 30 | Chanda Prescod-Weinstein UNH Physics | White Empiricism and the Making of Black Women Physicists |
| Dec 7 | Alma Steingart Harvard History of Science | Modernism and Mathematics at Midcentury |
Spring 2018
| Jan 19 | Grace Kim MIT HASTS | Using Microbiology to Restore Art and Cultural Heritage |
| Jan 26 | Ben Wurgaft MIT Anthropology | Laboratory-Grown Meat and the Future of Food |
| Feb 9 | Deborah Levine Providence College Health Policy | Weight Loss, Biometrics, and Citizenship in U.S. History |
| Feb 14 | Cathy O’Neil mathbabe.org | Algorithms and Their Discontents |
| Feb 16 | Jean-Michel Molenaar Tufts Biomedical Engineering | Maker Culture |
| Feb 23 | Floor Van de Velde Tufts/SMFA Sculpture | Computation, Art, and Creativity |
| Mar 2 | Stéphanie Pache Lausanne/Harvard History of Science | Gender, Violence, and Psychology: A Feminist History |
| Mar 9 | Dwai Banerjee MIT STS | Pharmaceutical Rights: The Struggle for Cancer Drugs in Contemporary India |
| Mar 16 | Damien Williams Virginia Tech STS | Experts, Algorithms, and Bias |
| Mar 30 | Mary Gray Microsoft Research Social Sciences | What STS Can Teach Us about the Future of Work in the Shadow of AI |
| Apr 9 | Michelle Jones NYU American Studies | Infrastructures of Imprisonment: Invisible Women and the Carceral State |
| Apr 13 | Tina Eliassi-Rad Northeastern Computer Science/Network Science | Just Machine Learning |
| Apr 20 | Moya Bailey Northeastern CSGS/WGSS | Black Feminist Health Science Studies |
| Apr 27 | Adam
Leeds Harvard International & Area Studies | Technology and Politics in the Soviet Union |