BCNM Alumni at 4S 2019
BCNM alumni Alenda Chang, Kris Fallon, Stuart Geiger and Christo Sims presented papers and/or organized sessions at 4S 2019 in New Orleans, Lousiana. This year, the Society for Social Studies of Science's annual meeting took place in early September.
Alenda Chang
Chang chaired and organized the "Media Studies Interruptions of STS" sessions on the second day of the conference. The session questions how media studies can interrupt and reframe existing assumptions and conclusions in science and technology studies (STS). She looked toward topics such as biomaterial technologies or climate change games as potential avenues for scholarly inquiry.
Kris Fallon
Fallon participated in another session of Chang's "Media Studies Interruptions of STS," chairing a discussion that involved race in popular representations of medicine and digital technologies of consent. Fallon even presented his own paper, "Taking Competitive Advantage: GANS and the Inherent Ethics of AI." His paper argues that technologies designed to analyze information and media are socio-technically influenced by its creators.
Stuart Geiger
Geiger co-presented two papers on open-source software (OSS): "The Invisible Work of Open-Source Software Maintenance" and "Who Pays the Costs of Free and Open-Source Scientific Software?" In the former, he and his team present their findings on the infrastructural work performed in OSS projects. In the latter, the paper proposes how OSS work can actually be disadvantageous for early career researchers.
Christo Sims
Sims showcased "Trends, Profits, and Prophetic Expertise: Producing and Assessing Value in the Neoliberal University," which explored how experts in universities are assessed on the value of their work. He notes that the "trend form of valorization" is a popular method as it relies on narrative modes of distinguishing quality rather than analytic.
We are so proud of our BCNM alumni who are constantly up to amazing things in their fields of studies. Keep an eye out for them — you never know what they may accomplish next.