[Sci-tech-public] STS Circle, October 18th - Sara Wylie - (please RSVP)

[Harvard STS]

*STS Circle at Harvard*
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*Sara Wylie
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*HASTS, MIT*
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on

*ExtrACT: Studying Chemicals and Corporations through STS in Practice
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Monday, October 18th
12:15-2:00 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106

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Lunch is provided.
Please RSVP to sts at hks.harvard.edu by Thursday, October 14th.

*Abstract: C*an STS be practical and experimental? This talk examines novel
scientific and social scientific research developed in response the
contemporary nation-wide boom in natural gas extraction. Gas drilling “here,
and now” is transforming social, physical, legal and biological landscapes
across the U.S. What role is the academy playing in revealing, mediating,
studying and redressing the threats posed by this industry? What role could
and should it play? This talk analyzes first innovative database development
by scientists that called into question the safety of chemicals used in
natural gas extraction, and follows the storm of regulatory and social
controversies it helped create. Second, it presents ExtrAct, an experimental
research group I co-directed, that is producing online databasing and
mapping tools to help communities study, monitor and respond to this
industry. This talk explores the results of ‘practicing STS’ to develop
alternative means for grass roots monitoring of this industry and its
environmental health effects.

*Biography: *Sara Wylie is an ABD student in MIT’s History, Anthropology,
Science, Technology and Society Program (HASTS) Program. She is finishing up
her dissertation “Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds: an STS analysis of
the American Natural Gas Industry”. Her dissertation studies the natural gas
industry in the United States, particularly the process of identifying human
health hazards associated with the chemically intensive process Hydraulic
Fracturing. Her work combines ethnographic and applied research methods. Her
applied research involved developing web-based tools to help communities and
experts across the country study and hold extractive industries accountable
for their social and environmental impacts. This project called ExtrAct was
developed in collaboration with artist and technologist Chris
Csikszentmihalyi, in MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media. She seeks to
develop new modes of studying and intervening in large-scale social issues
such endocrine disrupting chemicals and corporate accountability through a
fusion of social scientific, scientific and art/design practices. She
continues to investigate those interests through teaching interdisciplinary
studio art and design classes at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) on
Laboratory and Science Studies.

A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/
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