New STPP Online Course!
STPP Director Shobita Parthasarathy recently released a new massive open online course (MOOC) "Justice and Equity in Technology Policy," on Michigan Online. The MOOC, which is available for free, helps STEM and policy professionals, community organizers, and students understand how injustices can become embedded in technology and associated policies. It also explores how these policies affect marginalized communities and how the impacts can be addressed through better technological design and public policy.
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STPP receives gift to expand educational opportunities for undergraduates
STPP has received a $250,000 gift to expand educational opportunities for undergraduates across campus from Phil (LSA ’87) and Julie (LSA ’88) Hollyer, parents of Keegan (Ford BA ’20). In the short term, the grant enables the STPP program to hire an education program manager, who will focus on identifying needs and creating new undergraduate programs. The program manager will also oversee STPP’s pioneering graduate certificate program, and develop new STPP-oriented educational activities for postdoctoral fellows, mid-career STEM and policy professionals, and community organizers.
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STPP scholars receive inaugural Quad Fellowships
STPP students Elana Goldenkoff (Ph.D. candidate in Movement Science, School of Kinesiology) and Divya Ramesh (Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science and Engineering) are part of an inaugural cohort of Quad fellows, 100 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduate students from Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, known as the Quad countries.
The Quad Fellowship is designed to spur interdisciplinary scientific and technological innovation while building ties among and empowering the next generation of STEM leaders.
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Community Partnerships Initiative
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STPP's Community Partnerships Initiative (CPI) produced a policy brief on Automated License Plate Readers, a surveillance technology that can alert law enforcement about vehicle locations in real-time or provide information on past movements. CPI also worked with We the People of Detroit on a policy brief on decentralized wastewater treatment in Detroit.
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Earlier this year, STPP hosted a conversation on "Indigenous DNA and data: Community approaches to equity in genomics and health" with Krystal Tsosie, an Indigenous geneticist-bioethicist and assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, and Jody Platt, associate professor of Learning Health Sciences at the U-M Medical School. Tsosie discussed community-engaged research and paths forward that center Indigenous people as the agents of access for their own genomic and health data.
“Indigenous people should have rights to their own data. End of story,” Tsosie said. Watch the video.
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Ember McCoy receives NSF Dissertation Grant
STPP alum and current research assistant Ember McCoy (Ph.D. candidate, School of Environment and Sustainability) received a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant from the Science and Technology Studies division of the National Science Foundation. Her dissertation, Constructing Credible Knowledge and Expertise in Air Pollution Regulation and Monitoring: The Problem of Quantification, investigates novel questions in environmental justice policymaking, such as what happens when technical ways of knowing do not match the lived experiences of laypersons, particularly in historically disadvantaged communities of color.
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Margarita Maria Rodriguez Morales at Harvard STS Summer School
Margarita Maria Rodriguez Morales (Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy & Sociology) attended the Harvard STS Summer School and wrote an essay about the experience.
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Christina Del Greco joins JSPG editorial board
Christina Del Greco (Ph.D. candidate in Genetics and Genomics) was recently appointed as a new Associate Editor of the Journal of Science Policy and Governance.
Her current research is on rare diseases caused by defects in the mitochondria's ability to make essential proteins.
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Carmen Altes Interns at U.S. Government Accountability Office
Carmen Altes (MPP) did a summer internship with the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Science and Technology Assessment and Analytics team. Carmen received course credit toward the STPP certificate for this internship, and wrote about her experience.
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Student and Alumni News
STPP student Trevor Odelberg (Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering) was featured in an article by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on his experiences with STPP. He is studying how engineers can take better responsibility for the consequences of their research.
Max Bronstein (MPP/STPP ’10), founder of the Journal of Science Policy & Governance, celebrated the journal's 10th anniversary with an interview, where he discussed the initial goals and vision and how the journal can continue to help the careers of science policy professionals.
Laura Grier (MS '19, School for Environment and Sustainability, STPP '19), wrote an article in the Environmental Law Reporter on community input on state-level environmental justice screening tools.
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Faculty Affiliate News
H. Marshall McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Digital Media Christian Sandvig received a $50,000 grant from the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab to support research on his book Algorithm Auditing.
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Keep In Touch with STPP
As always, we want to hear about your professional and life updates! You can find us on Twitter and LinkedIn, or email us at stpp@umich.edu.
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