COLBY PRESHOT PRESENTERS, PAPER TITLES, ABSTRACTS, BIOS, EMAILS
Dave Baiocchi (“bi-OH-key”) is a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation, where he
has developed a research portfolio on the technology and science policy of remote
sensing. Some of his recent projects have included developing mitigation strategies for
the risks posed by space debris; helping the Air Force maximize the utility of their optical
observatory in Maui HI; and working with FEMA to develop response strategies for
dealing with the impact effects of near earth objects. Currently, Dave is working with the
U.S. Intelligence Community to help make their space-based collection systems more
flexible and robust. Before coming to RAND, Dave worked at Sandia National Labs. He
has a Ph.D. in optical sciences from the University of Arizona. —
Dave_Baiocchi@rand.org
Frazier Benya (discussant) is a Program Officer in the National Academy of
Engineering’s Center for Engineering Ethics and Society. Her work at the NAE has
focused on the impacts of climate change on engineered systems and society; ethics
education for science and engineering, specifically around energy; and on the ethical and
social issues with advancing military technologies. She received her Ph.D. in History of
Science, Technology, and Medicine from the University of Minnesota in 2012. Her thesis
focused on the history of bioethics and scientific social responsibility during the 1960s
and 1970s that led to the creation of the first federal bioethics commission in 1974. —
fbenya@nae.edu
Chandra D. Bhimull (session chair) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and
African American Studies at Colby College. She received her doctorate in Anthropology
and History from the University of Michigan and is writing a book entitled “Empire in
the Air: Airline Travel and the African Diaspora.” She is a coeditor of Anthrohistory:
Unsettling Knowledge and the Question of Discipline (University of Michigan Press), and
she has conducted ethnographic and archival research on flight and racial oppression in,
above, and between Barbados, Jamaica, and England. — cbhimull@colby.edu
Jonathan Coopersmith, Academic Societies and Public Policy: Help or hindrance? -This survey of professional historical and other humanities societies reveals a wide range
of institutional measures to support involvement in shaping public policy. Some societies
do nothing; others belong to coalitions and encourage active involvement in civil society.
Analyzing these measures should provide a menu of possible actions for historians of
technology. -- Jonathan Coopersmith is an Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M
University. His book on the history of the fax machine from 1843 to 2000 will appear in
2014 from Johns Hopkins University Press. Coopersmith has also written about the
importance of failure in technology, pornography and communication technologies, and
the electrification of Russia. For a larger audience, he has written several opinion pieces
for History News Service, including one on how Al Gore really did help invent the
internet. In 2008-09, Coopersmith was a Fulbright lecturer/researcher at the Tokyo
Institute of Technology. — j-coopersmith@tamu.edu
Marits Ertsen, A Tombstone as Diploma? Why long-term trends in ancient water
systems matter — As one of the material bases of human civilization – and often seen as
reason for collapse as well – irrigation systems are shaped through complex interactions
between and within the social and natural domains. The paper will introduce Human
Niche Construction Theory to clarify the capacity of organisms to modify their
environment and thereby influence their own and other species' evolution. HNC allows
building a recursive relationship between long-term human actions and landscape
modification. Discussing the concept will also allow studying why we should understand
societal collapse in new ways and whether policies towards sustainability will have a
potential for success. — An irrigation engineer by training, Maurits Ertsen is now an
interdisciplinary scholar on irrigation, studying the close relations between human
agency, canal infrastructure and environmental context in current, historical and
archaeological settings. Maurits is associate professor at the Water Resources Group of
Delft University of Technology. He currently works on a book project on the Gezira
Irrigation Scheme in the Sudan. Within another major project, Maurits studies how early
water systems emerged, changed and/or continued over time. — m.w.ertsen@tudelft.nl
Jim Fleming (conference co-chair) is Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at
Colby College and a visiting scholar at Columbia University in the City of New
York. His most recent books are Fixing the Sky: The checkered history of weather and
climate control (2010) and Toxic Airs: Body, place, planet in historical perspective (with
Ann Johnson, 2014). — jfleming@colby.edu
Ann Johnson, The Role of Predictions and Forecasts in Policy-Making — This paper
offers a short history of the role of predictions and forecasting focusing on the
development of roadmaps for technology developing in the US and Europe. The history
of roadmaps and technology forecasting is examined, their shortcomings and successes
analyzed, which leads to recommendations about making roadmaps more effective. —
Ann Johnson is an associate professor with a joint appointment in the history and
philosophy departments at the University of South Carolina. Author of Hitting the
Brakes: Engineering Design and the Production of Knowledge, her research focuses on
the history and practices of engineers. She also has been working on nanotechnology,
from both an STS/policy assessment perspective and through looking at the role of
simulations in nanoscience, for about ten years. She is currently at work with a
collaborative book with Johannes Lenhard, of the University of Bielefeld, on the history
and philosophy of prediction-making activities in science and engineering. —
annj@sc.edu
Paul Josephson, Public Participation in Science and Technology Issues in the US and
Russia — An examination of industrial safety, environmental regulation, and push-back
by vested interests in Russia and America reveals the importance of public participation
in the policy process. — Paul Josephson teaches history at Colby College. He is a
specialist in the history of 20th century big science and technology. He has completed
field research in Russia, Ukraine, Norway, and Brazil. — prjoseph@colby.edu
John Logsdon, Linking History to Policy: The example of the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board. — The original eight members of the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board decided early on in the investigation that some of the causes of the
accident were rooted in history. One month into the investigation, I was invited to join
the board to provide the historical foundation for that judgment. It is seldom that an
academic quasi-historian becomes a formal part of a policy-making activity. This paper
will discuss how I carried out my assignment, assisted by several leading members of the
space history community. — Dr. John M. Logsdon is Professor Emeritus of Political
Science and International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of
International Affairs, where he was the founder and long-time director of GW’s Space
Policy Institute. Author, among many articles, essays, and edited books, of the awardwinning study John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (2010), The Decision to Go to
the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest (1970), the NASA documentary
history series Exploring the Unknown (1995-2008), and the main article on “space
exploration” for the Encyclopedia Britannica, Logsdon is a sought-after commentator on
space issues who has appeared on all major broadcast and cable networks in addition to
the print media. In 2003 he was a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board,
and formerly was a member of the NASA Advisory Council. In 2008-2009 he held the
Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Air and Space
Museum. — logsdon@gwu.edu
Roger D. Launius, (conference co-chair and a 2013 Goldfarb Fellow) is senior curator in
the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space
Museum in Washington, D.C. engaged in space history and policy. Between 1990 and
2002 he served as chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
He has written or edited more than twenty books on aerospace history, most recently
Exploring the Solar System: The History and Science of Planetary Exploration (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013); Coming Home: Reentry and Recovery from Space (NASA, 2012);
Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Years
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Smithsonian Atlas of Space Exploration (HarperCollins,
2009); Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2008), and others. He is a Fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the
American Astronautical Society, and associate fellow of the AIAA. He also served as a
consultant to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003 and presented the
prestigious Harmon Memorial Lecture on the history of national security space policy at
the United States Air Force Academy in 2006. He is frequently consulted by the
electronic and print media for his views on space issues, and has been a guest
commentator on National Public Radio and all the major television network news
programs. — LauniusR@si.edu
Joseph Martin, Using Cultural Scaffolding to Assess and Manage Technological
Change — As elaborated by Wimsatt and Griesemer, cultural scaffolding processes
support skill acquisition on the part of individuals or organizations. I argue that new
technologies often supplant or constrain preexisting cultural scaffolds. Those who
previously acquired abilities from these scaffolds come to rely upon the new technology
to complete tasks they could once accomplish on their own. Therefore, when a scaffold is
displaced by a new technology, its would-be beneficiaries are deprived of the agency to
independently exercise the capacity or competency the scaffold supported. Evaluating
how technologies displace cultural scaffolds can ground philosophical assessments of the
cultural value of technologies and motivate policy stances designed to mitigate adverse
impacts of scaffolding displacement. — Joseph Martin is a Faculty Fellow in Science,
Technology, and Society at Colby College. He earned a Ph.D. in History of Science,
Technology, and Medicine from the University of Minnesota in 2013, where he also
completed an M.A. in philosophy in 2011. His dissertation explores the formation and
legacy of American solid state physics, and his research interests include the history of
twentieth century physics, reduction/emergence debates in the physical sciences, contacts
between academia and industry in the post-World War II physical research, and
philosophical perspectives in historical processes in science and technology. —
jdmartin@colby.edu
W. Patrick McCray, Analogy as a Tool for Regulating New Technologies (with Roger
Eardley-Pryor) — Since the mid-1990s, researchers, policy makers, and business leaders
touted nanotechnology as a keystone technology for fostering innovation and producing
the next industrial revolution. However, by the early 2000s, competing visions about
nanotechnology created concern and conflict over its anticipated applications and its
unknown toxicities. In order to encourage the appropriate oversight or regulation of
nanotechnology, stakeholders drew different historical analogies between prior
technological innovations and environmental hazards. And depending on what definition
of nanotechnology one chose, a different historical analogy could be found which
suggested a different approach to regulation. In this paper, we explore how and why
concerns about nanotechnology’s risks moved so rapidly to the forefront of policy
discussions. We also examine how nanotechnology’s proponents and opponents
mobilized analogies, deploying nuclear fallout, DDT, recombinant DNA, asbestos, and
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in attempts to shape public perception and
regulatory policy of nanotechnology. We argue that one’s perception and definition of
nanotechnology helped determine the analogy selected as a regulatory model. Finally, we
query how historical analogies remain static while technologies evolve over time. For
example, the prior decade saw leading social science researchers disavow the relation
between GMOs and nanotechnology as a dis-analogy full of folk theory. However, the
recent introduction of nanomaterials to food and food packaging may prove accurate
nanotechnology’s initial analogies with GMOs. As a result, we suggest that technological
innovation and evolution can turn analogies into historical artifacts, perhaps attenuating
the long-term utility of techno-historical analogies. — W. Patrick McCray is a professor
in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the
author of four books, most recently The Visioneers: How an Elite Group of Scientists
Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future. After he arrived at
UCSB, McCray became interested in the history of nanotechnology. He is a founding
member and co-PI for the NSF-funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society at UCSB.
He currently leads one of the CNS’s research initiatives; this explores the history of
nanotechnology and its place in the broader context of the technological enthusiasm and
industrial policy in the late 20th century. — pmccray@history.ucsb.edu
Teasel Muir-Harmony, The Apollo Program, Public Diplomacy, and the Role of
Technology in Foreign Relations — Technology came to play an important role in the
Cold War, not only for American economic and military growth, but also as a form of
soft power. American government officials harnessed impressive technology, from
rockets to high-tech kitchens, to serve as symbols of national strength and the efficacy of
the American political system, in order to win the hearts and minds, and in turn the
alliance of other nations. By the end of the 1990s, however, the use of technology in
public diplomacy had significantly diminished, and in its place the employment of
technology for economic and military pressure in foreign relations had increased. This
paper will examine a noteworthy utilization of technology in public diplomacy, Project
Apollo, and consider how this program can inform current public policy making. —
Teasel Muir-Harmony is a PhD candidate in MIT’s History, Anthropology, Science,
Technology, and Society (HASTS) Program. Her research focuses on the role of science
and technology in U.S. foreign relations, with an emphasis on the use of the American
space program in public diplomacy during the Cold War. She has held positions as an
Assistant Curator at the Adler Planetarium and Museum in Chicago and as a Guggenheim
Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. She is
currently a Fellow at the Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science. —
tmuirharmony@gmail.com
David E. Nye, Technological Fix or Regime Change? The United States and alternative
energies since c. 1980. — David E. Nye is the author of more than 150 books, reviews,
and articles dealing with the history of technology. His received the Dexter Prize (1993)
for Electrifying America, the Sally Hacker Prize (2009) for Technology Matters, and the
Leonardo da Vinci Medal (2005). His most recent book is America’s Assembly Line
(2013). — nye@sdu.dk
Lisa Ruth Rand is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History and Sociology of
Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She currently holds the 2013-2014 Daniel and
Florence Guggenheim Predoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum, where she will develop her dissertation project on orbital debris and the
environmental history of near-Earth space. She spent the last few months at the RAND
Corporation as a Summer Graduate Research Associate, where she applied her historical
skills and interests to science and technology policy analysis for the U.S. Air Force. —
lruthrand@sas.upenn.edu
Howard Segal, Techno-Fix Nation: America's historic embrace of practical utopias and
the policy implications. — My paper examines Americans' de facto embrace of technofixes, or short-term technological solutions to long-term, hitherto unsolvable social,
cultural, economic, and other non-technological problems. The term itself was coined by
physicist and prominent Oak Ridge Laboratory head Alvin Weinberg in 1966. But it can
be applied retrospectively to other pre-1966 projects and visions, including the
Technocracy movement of the 1930s and 1940s, post-WWII Modernization Theory to
elevate and democratize "underdeveloped" countries, and to certain Vietnam War
schemes like Robert McNamara's electronic battlefield. Later examples of techno-fixes
include Samuel Cohen's Neutron Bomb, Herman Kahn's survival schemes for nuclear
war, Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars," Simon Ramo's System Analysis, Nicholas
Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child, George Lucas' Edutopia, geo-engineering
megaprojects below and above the earth to stop global climate change, and predictions
based on Big Data. In all cases there is little or no concern for historical perspectives or
precedents that might have illuminated the proposals and projects. A bright spot,
however, has been the rejection of failed techno-fix solutions in favor of
"transdisciplinary" approaches to admittedly "wicked problems" that are not reducible to
primarily quantitative measures and that do not limit their analysis to teams of experts
with limited range of interests and talents. — Howard P. Segal is Adelaide and Alan Bird
Professor of History at the University of Maine, where he has taught since 1986. He
received his MA and Ph.D. from Princeton. He has published Technological Utopianism
in American Culture (1985; 2005); Future Imperfect: The Mixed Blessings of Technology
in America (1994); Technology in America: A Brief History (1989 and 1999, with Alan
Marcus); Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries (2005);
Technology and Utopia (2006); and Utopias: A Brief History from Ancient Writings to
Cyberspace Communities (2012). He also reviews books and writes essays for, among
other publications, Nature and the Times Higher Education (London). —
howard_segal@umit.maine.edu
Sverker Sörlin, Ground-truthing the Environmental Humanities: Policy dimensions of
environmental STS and history. — I will give a broad overview of the rapid
developments of the environmental humanities and ask come candid questions about its
relationship to policy — Can they actually contribute? What do we know about the
impacts of humanities research on policy? Do we need to know more? I will also try and
ask some candid questions about the relations of the environmental humanities and
various strands of history, and history of science. How will these relate to each other in
the future? What is happening with them now? May environmental humanities change
the paths for all these fields? —Sverker Sörlin is a professor in the Division of History of
Science, Technology and Environment at KTH Stockholm and involved in setting up the
KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory there. He was associate director of the
Center for History of Science in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1988-1990)
and held an adjunct position in the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University
2007-2012. He has had visiting positions at Berkeley (1993), Cambridge (2004-05), Oslo
(2006), the University of Cape Town (stints 2011-13), and is currently with the Institute
for Advanced Study, Princeton (2013-14). Two recent books: The Future of Nature, with
P. Warde and L. Robin (Yale 2013), and Northscapes: History, Technology, and the
Making of Arctic Environments, with D. Jorgensen (UBC Press 2013). A recent paper:
“Reconfiguring Environmental Expertise”, Environmental Science and Policy 28 (2013):
14-24. — sorlin@kth.se
Joel A. Tarr (conference keynote speaker), The Environmental Impacts of Past Energy
Transitions. — The United States is currently in the midst of a set of energy transitions
the full dimensions of which are unclear, especially in regard to environmental impacts.
But while considerable uncertainty exists concerning the future effects of energy
transitions, there is also only limited information regarding the environmental impacts of
past transitions. The absence of this information limits our ability to provide historical
perspectives on current changes as well as restricting possible contributions to policy. In
an attempt to provide some perspective on this history, my talk will focus on two cases of
energy transitions, each of which left large environmental legacies – the manufactured
gas industry that existed in thousands of American cities for over a century and past and
present natural gas development in Pennsylvania. — Joel A. Tarr is Richard S. Caliguiri
University Professor of History & Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. In 1988 his coedited book, Technology and the Rise of the Networked City in Europe and America was
awarded the Abel Wolman Prize of the Public Works Historical Society; in 1997, his
book, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective, was
awarded a Choice Distinguished Academic Book Award; in 2005, his edited book,
Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region, was
awarded a Certificate of Commendation by the American Association for State and Local
History; and, in 2007, his co-authored book, Horses in Cities: Living Machines in the
19th Century, received Honorable Mention for the Lewis Mumford Prize of the Society
for American City and Regional Planning History. He has served as President of the
Urban History Association (1999-2000) and of the Public Works Historical Society
(1982-83). Tarr's main research interests deal with the history of the urban environment
and the development of urban technological systems. — jt03@andrew.cmu.edu
Nina Wormbs (discussant) is Associate professor and serves as Head of Division of
History of Science, Technology and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
She has studied technology and the media, especially broadcasting. Another area of
interest is the electromagnetic spectrum, the allocation of which she has discussed most
recently in the volume by Kranakis and Disco (eds.) Cosmopolitan Commons (MIT Press
2013). Her present research deals with remote sensing and the efforts to understand and
display the Earth at a distance. The co-edited volume Media and the Politics of Arctic
Climate Change: When the Ice Breaks is scheduled to come out with Palgrave the fall of
2013. — nina@kth.se