Logan D. A. Williams
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Advice about navigating the job market from STS PhD's

19/7/2012

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In a previous post, I talked about the difficulties for STS PhD candidates just starting the academic job search. Also, I am interested in alternative careers besides academia because the chances of any newly minted Ph.D. getting a coveted tenure-track academic position are pretty slim. These days search committees can pick and choose among many well qualified social science PhD's with competitive vitaes that can 'do' STS. All's told, I am attempting to figure out how to get an academic or non-academic job where I can use the skills I have honed to understand and address interesting problems of science, technology, society and social justice.

Four people have assented to allow me to post their responses to questions about the STS job search here on my blog.  Dr. Jennifer Tucker is the Associate Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).  Dr. Casey O'Donnell is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media. Dr. Sean Lawson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, Department of Communication and Media Studies. Dr. JC is an associate professor at a university. Jennifer and JC graduated from Virginia Tech's STS program, while Casey and Sean graduated from Rensselaer's STS program.


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My thoughts on the academic job search for recent PhD's in Science and Technology Studies

29/5/2012

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I just read chapter 3 of Kyle Siler's dissertation, entitled “Nascent Institutional Strategy in Dynamic Fields: The Diffusion of Social Studies of Science”. Apparently it has been accepted in the American Behavioral Scientist journal which is wonderful news for Siler, and thankfully he has been kind enough to put up an earlier draft on his personal webpage.

Regardless of some limitations (see my comments below), his quantitative data is interesting. It appears that, at the present time, more U.S. science and technology studies scholars are affiliated with (in the following order): (1) general academic/ interdisciplinary departments; (2) sociology departments; (3) science and technology studies departments; (4) history departments. 

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The Future of Innovation Studies in Less Economically Developed Countries Published Online at Minerva

24/5/2012

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The online version of my co-authored article in Minerva (a science, education and policy journal) with Thomas S. Woodson is currently available from Springer publishing. The unofficial draft copy is available for free on my website. I am excited about my first STS-y publication, and invite feedback from anyone who is interested in providing it.
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Inside Rensselaer writeup about my externally-funded research on innovation and technology transfer

14/4/2012

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This was written by a very nice lady named Elisa, who made the interview painless and fun. Please see the following link:  http://www.rpi.edu/about/inside/issue/v6n7/sts.html
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Catching up with an RPI STS alumnus in Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya

3/9/2011

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It was fabulous having the chance to catch-up with Dr. Marie Rarieya during one of her visits to Nairobi for a workshop! Marie graduated with a PhD from the Science and Technology Studies department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before going to Japan for the prestigious JSPS-UNU Postdoctoral Fellowship at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies.  Now she works at Agra-Alliance in Accra, Ghana.

Marie is originally from Nairobi and has previously worked in Gigiri for the World Agroforestry Centre; she gave me some helpful tips and recommendations before I came out to work in Gigiri at UNON.

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Letter about NSF SBE which I sent to my U.S. representative and senators

6/7/2011

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Today a message came through on the SKAT listserv (Science, Knowledge and Technology subsection of the American Sociological Association) that was written by Laurel Smith-Doerr.  She encouraged us to write to our U.S. representatives and senators in support of the human sciences because the appropriations committee wants to cut the Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate out of the National Science Foundation.

Below I have posted the letter that I wrote and forwarded to my U.S. representative and senators.

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Knowledge from the Margins, Innovation and Institutional Change

14/5/2011

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I am so excited that the triple session that Tolu, Kevin, Denver and I have worked on has been accepted at the Society for the Social Studies of Science annual meeting in November 2011!  Cleveland Rocks!
We have a spectacular line-up of scholarly work, please see the abstracts here, 
Here is the KFM triple session abstract:
Knowledge from the margins is of longstanding interest to the field of Science and Technology Studies. Modern technoscientific knowledge is typically understood to be produced for patent, profit, and/or its liberal virtues. The early focus on innovative knowledge resulted primarily in elite histories of Western (typically male and Caucasian) technologists and scientists going through the frustrations and satisfactions of life in laboratories. However, such studies begged the question, where does this knowledge go, what does it do, and for whom? Later STS scholars often explored this question from the point of view of those in 'the margins' who are: peripheral to modern knowledge production (e.g. civil society organizations, laypersons); 'lacking' modern knowledge production (e.g. non-Western, indigenous); or excluded from modern knowledge production (e.g. female, minority, disabled).
This triple session will demonstrate how a theoretical focus on knowledge from the margins resists typical ways of conceptualizing producers, users and innovation, and radicalizes thinking about institutional change. Part I will topically focus on 'sciences from below' and how they question assumptions about the knowledge production process that are common to Western societies. Part II will demonstrate how perturbing the user/producer boundary resists typical ways of thinking about the design and consumption of information and communications technologies.  Part III will discuss how modern ideologies of technocracy and/or neoliberalism shape local knowledge and, conversely, allow for local knowledge to challenge expert regulation. STS and other scholars in women's studies,geography, political sociology of science, and sociology of technology will be interested in this session.
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    Logan primarily uses this blog to: reflect on policy and professionalization issues in STS (e.g. research funding, discipline formation, skill building, job-hunting, policy applications of STS theory) and to disseminate her own scholarship.


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