Engineering Studies

Ellan Spero

Ellan Spero is a historian of science and technology, educator and instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is an academic entrepreneur, serving as co-founder, chief curriculum officer, and lead instructor at Station1, a nonprofit higher education institution focused on a new inclusive and cross-disciplinary model of socially-directed science and technology education, research, and innovation. Dr. Spero’s research focuses on the ways that people envision human progress through the systems, institutions, objectives, and narratives that they create. As a historian working at the intersection of technology, business, and higher education, Dr. Spero’s research explores narratives of progress, systems of production, academic-industrial ecosystems, and interactions between humans and material infrastructures. Dr. Spero is a member of numerous international working groups and has presented at the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), the Business History Conference, Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), the European Economic History Association, and specialty conferences on World’s Expos, academic-entrepreneurship, and maintenance and innovation. Dr. Spero is a member of a research collaboration on railroads in historical context and “technological landscape” in the Tua Valley in Portugal. Most recently, she has received a fellowship from the Linda Hall Library, and has previously received fellowships from the Chemical Heritage Foundation (Science History Institute), and Hagley Museum and Library. She is currently a co-editor of special journal issue of ACS Biomaterials on bioinspired materials. At Station1, Dr. Spero has led the development of cross-disciplinary curriculum on socially-directed science and technology and is a co-lead on three grant-funded pedagogical initiatives which focus on social responsibility, inclusive innovation, and thoughtful development of science and technology. Spero was recently a visiting scientist at the Smart Living Lab at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Fribourg, Switzerland and prior a joint researcher between MIT and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). Dr. Spero holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society. Spero also has a B.S. and M.S. from Cornell University in Fiber Science and Apparel Design, and a M.A from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Museum Studies and Textile Conservation.