Engineering Studies

Johannes Lenhard and Ann Johnson, "Systems Thinking and the Mainframe Culture of Prediction." Chapter five from their forthcoming book, Prediction as Practice and Culture.
 
Commentary from Davis Baird, professor of philosophy at Clark University.
 
Click the link below to download the book's table of contents, introduction, and fifth chapter.

“Engineering Studies in the Real World”  
This session explores where, why, and with what impacts engineering studies is being practiced outside of the academy. We will hear from panelists who pursue history, philosophy, ethnography as engaged practices in the investigation of engineering failures, NASA decision-making, and issues of ethics and responsibility at the National Academy of Engineering. We especially encourage others practicing engineering studies beyond the academy to join us. 
Panelists

• Julie Mark Cohen, Independent Scholar
• Zachary Pirtle, NASA
• Courtney Hill, National Academy of Engineering

Moderator

• Marie Stettler Kleine, Colorado School of Mines

*Note Special Time*
Joint meeting with the History of Technology Working Group
Ryan Hearty, Johns Hopkins University
"Monitoring Water Quality in US Rivers in the 1950 and 1960s: information, communication, and applied sciences"

TBA

A discussion with Jessica M. Smith of her forthcoming book in the Engineering Studies Series of MIT Press, Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility (MIT Press, 2021). Comments from Rider Foley (University of Virginia) and Thomas De Pree (University of New Mexico and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute).
 
Please read chapter 3 for the discussion (attached). Or, to download the entire book, click here.

No meeting this month. Have a happy and restful June!
 

“ABET’s Errant Evaluators and the Limits of Accreditation as a Mode of Governance in Engineering Education”
Atsushi Akera (Rensselaer), Sarah Appelhans (U Albany), Rafael Burgos-Mirabal (U Mass Amherst), Alan Cheville (Bucknell), Thomas DuPree (Univ. New Mexico), Soheil Fatehiboroujeni (Cornell), Jennifer Karlin (Minnesota State, Mankato), Donna Riley (Purdue)
Commentator: Julia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

*Note Special Time* Sangwoon Yoo, Assistant Professor, Hanbat National University, Korea, "Self-defining Waste: Cleanroom Operators and Maintainers in the Semiconductor Industry in South Korea in the 1980s-2000s."  Commentator:  Ross Bassett, Professor of History, North Carolina State University

 
Dean Chahim, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, Stanford University (United States): "'A Permanent Bloodletting': Engineering, Drainage, and the Sinking of Mexico City, 1947-1967."
 
Commentator: Vera S. Candiani, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University (United States).

 
First panel discussion, “Situating Engineering Studies within History of Science, Technology, and Medicine,” with:

• Cyrus Mody, Professor in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Maastricht University (Netherlands)
• Trisha Tschopp, PhD Candidate in History and Science Studies, University of California San Diego (United States)
• Heidi Voskuhl, Associate Professor and Graduate Chair, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania (United States)

 
In the growing field of engineering studies, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, engineering educators, and other science and technology studies scholars center engineers and engineering as their subjects of analysis. This inaugural session of the Engineering Studies working group asks where such scholarship fits in the history of science, technology, and medicine. Via a panel discussion and community conversation we will explore the internationalization of engineering studies, its disciplinary boundary crossings, its emerging trends, and its future directions.