Engineering Studies

Discussion and planning for developing works in progress themes (examples for sessions may include: working with images, data visualization, digital research strategies, AI, engagement of historical work with hot topics in contemporary engineering) 

Discussion of preparation for SHOT Prometheans panel (The 2025 SHOT Annual Meeting takes place at the Belval Campus of the University of Luxembourg 9-11 October 2025) CFP will be released Jan 31st

Lightning talks (~5 minutes each)

If you are interested in sharing your work please reply to us (efs8@mit.edu and rhearty1@jhu.edu)

A discussion with Konstantinos Chatzis, author of the open-access Forecasting Travel in Urban America: The Socio-Technical Life of an Engineering Modeling World, Engineering Studies (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2023), https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10359.001.0001.
 
To prepare for discussion, you can optionally read the introduction and/or chapter 2.

A discussion with Guru Madhavan, author of Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2024), https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393651461.
 
We'll focus our discussion on Guru's recent post in NAE Perspectives: 
https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2024/03/engineering-our-wicked-pr...

Questing Excellence in Academia
A discussion with Knut H. Sørensen and Sharon Traweek about their recently published open-access book, Questing Excellence in Academia: A Tale of Two Universities (London: Routledge, 2022).
*NOTE SPECIAL DATE AND TIME*
Click on the book title to access a description of the book, its table of contents, and a link to free digital copy of the book.
From the authors to guide our discussion:
To build our argument about variations in global higher education we juxtapose changes at two public universities over the last 75 years: NTNU and UC/UCLA, both prominent and serving wealthy regions. We claim that universities are disciplined by multiple forces to generate both public and private goods. We focus on the changing cultural, economic, material, political, and social techniques and technologies of both the disciplining and generative processes at NTNU and UCLA, as well as the different strategies those two universities have developed for adapting to and avoiding the changing demands imposed upon them.
We show that there is no singular ‘neo-liberal university’ but a patterned array of strategic engagements with differently configured local and global ecologies. Among other positions we argue that the current governing infrastructures are unsustainable; we also claim that teaching about our research is the primary way that universities engage with innovations in global political economies. We present 4 concepts to convey our interpretative strategies: domesticating, co-morphing, meshworking, and faultlines. Some key topics in our interpretation are sustainability, funding, governance, rankings, revenue streams, reputations, factions, and the required 'subject formation' of students, faculty, and administrators.
Tersely, we suggest reading pages 5-9, 13-22, 26-35, note the keywords listed on pages 221-225, and then pick a chapter of interest to you. There are very brief histories of NTNU and UCLA, plus the systems in which they are embedded on pages 26-32. The book’s argument is summarized on 5-9 and the book’s structure is described on 33-35. Our recommendations are presented 200-205. We use archival, ethnographic, and interview research methods, as described on pages 18-22. We invoke and challenge scholarship from four fields: higher education studies, organization studies, and history of universities, plus Science, Technology, and Society studies (STS), as discussed on pages 13-18.
 

Electrifying Indonesia: Technology and Social Justice in National Development
 
A discussion with Anto Mohsin, Assistant Professor in the Liberal Arts Program at Northwestern University in Qatar, of his recently published book, Electrifying Indonesia: Technology and Social Justice in National Development (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2023). Purchase the book here.
 
The fourth chapter is attached below (login required). [Edit: I've re-uploaded a new document that has abbreviations and notes.]

Spanning the Gilded Age: James Eads and the Great Steel Bridge
 
A discussion with Jack Brown, professor emeritus at University of Virginia, of his forthcoming book, Spanning the Gilded Age: James Eads and the Great Steel Bridge, with Johns Hopkins University Press (21 May 2024; available for preorder). At the broadest level, Spanning the Gilded Age explores the work of a brilliant polymath, the nature of engineering creativity, and the shifting tides of success and failure across time.
 
The preface and third chapter are attached below (login required).

"Bridging Glass Education, Research, and Practice: Art, Engineering, and Experiential Learning at the MIT Glass Lab, 1967-1988." A paper draft and presentation by Alexander Evenchik, PhD Student in the Robotic Matter Lab at Northwestern University.
 

Abstract: The emergence and persistence of new community spaces in established environments often signals and reflects the desires, values, and trajectories of their home institutions. As a space that bridged artistic practice, experiential engineering education, and interdisciplinary research, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Glass Lab reflected the values of not only its founders, but also its broader community. This paper draws on this historical case with contemporary relevance for how we think about the value of such teaching spaces and their effects on practice, interdisciplinarity, community, and education.

 
Download available below (visible when you are logged in with your CHSTM account).

Open discussion: Beginning a shared bibliography project using Zotero
Please join us as we start building our shared library!
 
Guest discussants, two contributors to the Envirotech bibliography:

• Finn Arne Jørgensen, Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger (Norway)
• Julie Cohn, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, and Center for Public History, University of Houston (USA)

 
Link to our Getting Started guide (also attached as pdf, version 6 December 2023): 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OUHUyrXaqccyzI3o-MgOU2ABNZq9AeXVgcjO...
 
Register here: 
https://www.zotero.org/groups/5036327/engineering_studies 

Meeting postponed to December 15.

Introductions, SHOT Annual Conference preview, and Bibliography Collaborations

Reflections on May 18-20 IEEE Ethics Conference and May 20 INES Workshop: A discussion led by Sarah Appelhans (Postdoctoral Research Associate, Bucknell University).
 
We will also briefly discuss a bibliography project working through the Zotero group, Engineering Studies. For useful background reading on Zotero groups, visit:
https://www.zotero.org/support/groups 
 
NOTE: All are welcome and encouraged to attend this follow-up discussion. You do not need to have attended the May 20 workshop.

Dialogue with Professor Jessica Smith, Editor-in-chief of Engineering Studies
Readings:

Downey, Gary Lee. “What Is Engineering Studies for? Dominant Practices and Scalable Scholarship.” Engineering Studies 1, no. 1 (March 1, 2009): 55–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/19378620902786499.
Smith, Jessica M. “Introduction to the New Editor-in-Chief.” Engineering Studies 15, no. 1 (January 2, 2023): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2178524.

¡Alerta! Engineering on Shaky Ground
 

A discussion with Elizabeth Reddy, PhD, of her recently published book with MIT's Engineering Studies Series, ¡Alerta! Engineering on Shaky Ground (MIT Press, 2023).

 
Intro, body chapter, and conclusion are attached below (login required).

"Competent From Personal Experience": Networks of Engineers and Decision Making behind South Korea's Mungyong Cement Plant
 

A work-in-progress by Juyoung Lee, PhD candidate in history of science and technology at Johns Hopkins University (USA). This is a chapter draft from Juyoung's forthcoming dissertation.
 
Chapter draft available for download below.

No meeting

Technocratic Visions: Engineers, Technology, and Society in Mexico
 
A discussion with J. Justin Castro and James A. Garza of their recently published edited volume, Technocratic Visions: Engineers, Technology, and Society in Mexico (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022).
 
Introduction is attached below (group members only).
 

Beyond the Lab and the Field: Infrastructures As Places of Knowledge Production since the Late Nineteenth Century
 
A discussion with Eike-Christian Heine and Martin Meiske of their edited volume, Beyond the Lab and the Field (Pittsburgh University Press, 2022).
 
The book's introduction is attached below.

Welcome and Community Engagement for Working Group Priorities (co-chairs)
“Lightning Talks” (featured members)

• Dr. Claire Mayo
• Dr. Julie Mark Cohen 
• Henrique Oliveira 
• Dr. Changxue Shu

Upcoming Conferences and Opportunities (co-chairs)
Future Plans and General Discussion (all)

From Social Optimization to Interconnected Systems: The “Systems Approach” as Technological Imagination in Japan, 1960s–80s

 
A work-in-progress by Yize Hu, PhD candidate in history of science and technology at Johns Hopkins University (USA). This is a chapter draft from Yize's forthcoming dissertation.
Commentary from Cyrus Mody, Maastricht University (Netherlands).
 
 

In it for the long haul: Negotiating interdisciplinary “culture change” in engineering education reform.
 
A work-in-progress by Annie Patrick, Matthew Wisnioski, and Lisa McNair, Virginia Tech (USA).
Commentary by Caitlyn Wyle, University of Virginia (USA).
 
Abstract
How do engaged STS scholars and engineering educators work together over an extended period to make change? In 2015, the National Science Foundation created the Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) initiative to address persistent challenges in engineering education. A distinguishing feature of RED was its focus on “culture change” via interdisciplinary teams that brought social scientists and engineering education researchers into long-term departmental planning with the intention of creating sustainable, evidence-based, and reproducible results. In this study we analyze what happened when we translated this complex national imperative into local practice at our university. Focusing on the groundwork of critical participation, we reconstruct how we enacted culture change through visible and invisible negotiations. We draw on six years of documents, interviews, and ethnographic observations to show how interdisciplinary engineering education reform begins with different, often unstated, perspectives about culture change. We then trace how these meanings and practices evolved across time along with transformations in identities, departmental structures and power relations, and our own strategies of intervention. We demonstrate that culture change is a crucial but elusive concept for both engaged STS scholars and engineering educators, and that attending to its negotiations can reveal how change can be foreclosed, why efforts fail and succeed, and how projects can be revitalized and sustained.