STS Program Committee
Academic Year 2025 - 2026
Joe Auner, Music
Joseph Auner has a background in analog synthesizers and recording. He has written about electronic music, technostalgia, and the idea of posthuman. Auner teaches courses like Music, Technology, and Digital Culture and The Sonic Imagination.
Tatiana Chudakova, Anthropology
Jamee Elder, Philosophy
Jamee Elder teaches a range of classes in the philosophy of science and philosophy of technology. Their research investigates how astronomers study black holes empirically, and grapples with questions about when we should trust scientific models, instruments, and experiments.
Michael Hughes, Computer Science
Fatima Hussain, Biology
Fatima Aysha Hussain researches the vaginal microbiome as a dynamic microbial ecosystem connected to sexual and reproductive health. She examines the design of microbial therapies alongside questions of gender, race, sexuality, and the social contexts that shape how microbiome science is translated into interventions.
Jess Keiser, English
Zarin Machanda, Anthropology
Zarin Machanda is in the department of Anthropology with a secondary appointment in Biology. She studies wild chimpanzees including chimpanzee cultures and their creation and use of tools. Understanding the social and ecological contexts of chimpanzee technology and culture helps provide a comparative framework for understanding the evolution of human culture.
Sarah Pinto, Anthropology
Sarah Pinto studies histories and cultures of biomedicine in India, with a focus on the ways science and medicine are practiced through kinship, gender, caste, and politics. She teaches courses on medicine, gender, religion, and South Asia, and is researching intersections of medicine and law in end of life care in West Bengal. She has also worked on psychiatry, pharmaceuticals, pregnancy and childbirth, and traditional practitioners in north India.
Mat Rappaport, Film & Media Studies
Mat Rappaport studies how architecture, cities, and media representation influence how people move through the world and how stories and ideologies take hold. His media studies teaching is collaborative and project-based, inviting students to experiment with contemporary tools in courses on Internet Culture, Online Video Platforms, and AI while staying grounded in careful, human-centered critique.
Caleb Scoville, Sociology
Caleb Scoville studies the politics of environmental knowledge and the dynamics of environmental controversies. Scoville’s research excavates the historical sources of contemporary environmental conflicts and explores the relationship between the natural environment and political senses of "us" and "them."
Elaine Short, Computer Science
Elaine Short's research focus is in human-robot interaction and assistive technology. Her STS connection is that her lab's work is informed by social science at the intersection of disability and technology, with an emphasis on operationalizing disabled-community-centric perspectives into the behavior of AI systems for robotics and human-robot interaction.
James Skripchuk, Computer Science
James teaches multiple classes in Computer Science, ranging from introductory computing to Artificial Intelligence. His teaching is informed by his research in self-regulated learning and how novice programmers seek help using a wide variety of resources outside the classroom, such as forums and generative AI tools.
Liana Woskie, Community Health