Justin Carone, Drexel University, Science, Technology & Society

Through my studies in the field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS), I have developed an interest in the social dimensions of the human-built world. In my paper submission for the 2014 ANSI Student Paper Competition entitled, “Standards as Social Design Practice: From the Americans with Disabilities Act to the Accessible Icon Project,” I explore: (1) how standards practitioners attempt to define the shared meaning of technical artifacts and their social relations and, (2) how the use of iterative and contextually specific practices in the creation of standards can help to effectuate social change. During my participation in the Standards in Society Summer Institute, I hope to reach a better understanding of the roles that standards play in society and collaborate with fellow researchers and standards practitioners to construct those roles.

Melanie Jeske, Drexel University, Science, Technology & Society

My research is situated at the intersection of medical sociology and science and technology studies. I am a graduate of the MS in STS from Drexel University and will be starting my doctoral work in sociology at University of California, San Francisco in the fall. My current research traces the rise of obesity science in the US during the second half of the 20th century, illuminating the utilization of BMI as a technology of standardization and stabilization.

Alli Morgan, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Science & Technology Studies

I am a student in the Science and Technology Studies department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and will matriculate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2016. With my primary research focused on chronic health disparities in post-conflict nations, I am particularly interested in the histories that edify medical standardization within developing public health systems. With this study of chronicity extending into the field of disaster studies, I am interested in the ways in which standards become objects of political scrutiny; both undercutting and promoting care in the aftermath of disaster across scales. In regards to the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters, I have focused on study of the underlying social and political determinants that inform regulatory and compensation schemes in the wake of radiation disaster.

Antonia Pavli, Orebro University, Disabilities Science

My interest in the study of standards is associated with the area of disability. In my research project I examine how disability is enacted through disability classification systems. Specifically I focus on the development and implementation of disability classifications systems in Greece. Classifications and standards are closely connected since classification systems are the outcome of successful standards. Thus in order to investigate the development of disability classification systems, it is also important to investigate and analyze the standards through which these systems come into being.

Lindsay Poirier, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Science & Technology Studies

My research considers how the diverse logics of interdisciplinary Web scientists translate into and become embedded in the design of digital architecture. I look closely at the design of semantic Web technologies that structure how knowledge gets codified and thus how information becomes meaningful on the Web. I am interested in how Web standards (such as HTML5), vocabulary standards (such as the Resource Description Framework), and ontology languages (such as OWL) reflect competing epistemologies on knowledge representation and ontology.

Karen Senaga, Mississippi State University, History

My research explores the rise and recent decline of the farm-raised catfish industry. I’m interested in how commodities like the catfish are constructed, dissembled, and reconstructed again. In particular I investigate how standards are reflections and embodiments of power and cultural values. Through the Standards in Society Summer Institute I hope to gain further insight into these concepts and develop my understanding of how and why standards for industries are created.

Jesse Smith, University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science

My dissertation is a history of the U.S. cruise industry; working at the intersection of environmental history and the history of technology, I use cruise ships as a case study to understand the envirotechnical and spatial dimensions of post-war consumer experiences. I am interested in exploring further the role of standardization in forging, maintaining, and expanding such experiences. Specifically, I want to determine how particular cruise ship spaces, techniques, and practices become subject to standardization; how leisure industries negotiate consumer subjectivities and economic values of efficiency and replicability; and how port engineers, ship designers, travel agents, and hospitality educators translate those negotiations for consumers. In addition, I am interested in how standards are adapted to local circumstances — how a fast food chain's visual identity is incorporated into a historic building, for example. Building on my research on the construction and deployment of large consumer spaces, I am personally and politically motivated by moments when standards are ignored, subverted, or abandoned.

Bryan Tyrrell, University of California Santa Barbara, History

I study the history of DNA nanotechnology. In particular, I am interested in the standardization and commercialization that accompanied the field as it grew. Nanotechnologists purchase standardized nanomaterials, such as DNA, carbon nanotubes, and gold nanoparticles, from the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology as well as from private firms. As a result, I am interested in the relationship between political economy and standards and measurement.

Loretta von der Tann, University College London, Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering

I'm interested in the development of standards in particular in relation to underground engineering and infrastructure. How do standards in geotechnical engineering differ from other areas of engineering and technology? Did the drivers to establish and adapt standards for underground engineering differ across countries, did they change over time and what are the implications? I hope that studying these questions can contribute to the definition of a coherent and sensible set of standards for the urgently needed upgrade and maintenance of subsurface infrastructure in bigger cities.

Nicole Welk-Joerger, University of Pennsylvania, History & Sociology of Science

My general research interests focus on animal nutrition and food production, and I hope to integrate both historical and anthropological methods when exploring these topics.   My ethnographic research with Amish dairy farming communities in 2013 encouraged my pursuit to study food, particularly after seeing the many different ways farmers approach interactions with the food market and more immediately their food producing animals.  I recognize that standards and the process of standardization are important components to the greater food debates today, and through this summer institute I am excited to more actively use standardization as an analytic in my current work.

Daniel Williford, University of Michigan, History

I study construction and demolition in colonial and postcolonial Morocco. One aspect of my project deals with how engineering standards are imported, adapted, improvised, and implemented in the context of dramatic urban planning interventions by the French colonial state during the post-war period. More recently, I have also begun to think about the circulation of standardized materials, especially the cinder block, now a dominant feature of the urban landscape anywhere in Morocco.  I approach standards and their implementation in Morocco as a negotiated terrain where experts, laborers, and bureaucrats mobilized arguments about skill, knowledge, technology, and nature to articulate political projects.

Qin Zhu, Purdue University, Engineering Education

My main research interests include global, international, and comparative engineering education, engineering ethics, and science, technology, and society studies. My current research intersects with “standards” in two aspects: (1) a significant part of my dissertation explores ways to define and assess competencies that are indispensable for global engineers to navigate ethics, technical standards, and regulations in cross-cultural contexts; and (2) my research on international education policy takes a critical stance toward the internationalization of educational standards in engineering education including by looking at the ethical and political ramifications of adopting international engineering education standards in emerging economies.