STSS – Page 2 – Society + Technology at UW

Register now for the STSS Graduate Presentations and Reception | May 14, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 5:00–7:00 PM
233 Sieg Building | Design Lab | UW Seattle

Join us for the annual Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STSS) Graduate Presentations and Reception, the first in-person event in a long while, celebrating the work of this year’s graduating certificate students: Dan Tibbles, Cameron Musard, Rin Huang, Rachael Diamond, and Erica Bigelow.

The STSS Graduate Certificate Program at the UW introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of science, technology, and society through coursework, mentorship, and independent research. Through their studies, they develop specialized portfolios that reflect their intellectual interests and contributions. This capstone experience is an opportunity to hear from students about their research, to engage with our STSS faculty and affiliates community, and to celebrate the culmination of their work and our year together. A reception will follow the presentations.

Directions and parking: https://www.hcde.washington.edu/directions

Student Presenters

Dan Tibbles
Bioethics and Humanities

Advisor: Sara Goering (Philosophy)
Presentation: Zooming Out

Dan Tibbles is a graduate student in Bioethics & Humanities, Genetic Epidemiology, and Education, Equity, & Society at the University of Washington. His work sits at the intersection of bioethics, public health genetics, and science and technology studies, focusing on how institutional incentives, interpretive practices, and data infrastructures shape what biotechnologies become clinically available, how they are communicated, and whom they serve. Prior to academia, he spent two decades in the tabletop game industry as a designer, manager, and business owner, a background that informs his systems-oriented approach to ethics, infrastructure, and human choice.

Rachael Diamond
Communication

Advisor: Carole Lee (Philosophy)
Presentation: Science/Society Communication in a Warming World

Rachael Diamond is a second-year graduate student in the Department of Communication whose master’s thesis research examines climate science communication and the rhetoric of environmental activists. After earning her MA, she will start her PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University in the fall. Before coming to UW, she was a political organizer advocating for pro-climate policies and candidates, and studied philosophy at Scripps College.

Erica Bigelow
Philosophy

Advisor: Amanda Friz (Communication)
Presentation: Meeting and Making the Tech-Built World

Erica Bigelow is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy whose dissertation studies the nature and extent of our moral obligations toward others’ emotions. She is a scholar of critical disability studies and is particularly interested in how online discourse shapes and interprets such obligations, and in rethinking feminist moral theories to meet the present moment.

Cameron Musard
Urban Design and Planning

Advisor: Daniela Rosner (Human Centered Design & Engineering)
Presentation: New-Wave Old-School Urban Planning (Retro-Planning): A Master Builder Imaginary

Cameron Musard is a second-year Master of Urban Planning student within the College of Built Environments, whose STSS portfolio explores the role of craft and making in the production and authorization of knowledge within built environment schools. He is a scholar of pragmatist/linguistic philosophy. His research interests include classical sociological topics such as analytical comparison between “traditional” and “modern” societies; and in philosophy of science, analytical comparison between naturalism and positivist epistemic venues.

Rin Huang
Cinema and Media Studies

Advisor: David Ribes (Human Centered Design & Engineering)
Presentation: Media, Modernization, Mobility

Rin Huang is a graduate student in Cinema and Media Studies, focusing on transportation and its media representations. They wonder how technologies, especially those related with aviation and aeromobility, create a dispersed imagination of globalization and modernization since 1920s.

Advisors

Sara Goering
Philosophy (UW Seattle)

Sara Goering is Professor of Philosophy and the Program on Ethics, and has affiliations with the Department of Bioethics and Humanities, and the Disability Studies Program. In addition, she currently leads the ethics thrust at the UW Center for Neurotechnology. She teaches courses in bioethics, ethics, philosophy of disability, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of medicine. She also spends time discussing philosophy with children in the Seattle public schools, through her role as the Program Director for the UW Center for Philosophy of Children.

Carole J. Lee
Philosophy (UW Seattle)

Carole J. Lee is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington, an Adjunct Professor at the Information School (iSchool), and Affiliate Faculty at the Center for an Informed Public, Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, eScience Institute, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, and the Society + Technology Program. She studies the social structure of science from both normative and descriptive perspectives.

Amanda Friz
Communication (UW Seattle)

Dr. Friz is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric of Health and Medicine in the Department of Communication and an Associate Director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity and its Heal Equity Action Lab. She is currently writing her first book, A New Materialist Critique for a Radical Politics of Pleasure, which proposes shifting the locus of feminist pleasure activism from liberal subjectivity toward a radically inclusive plurality as the basis for more equitable sexual relationships.

Daniela Rosner
Human Centered Design & Engineering, DXARTS (UW Seattle)

Daniela Rosner is Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXArts) and Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington, where she serves as Associate Chair of External Affairs. She holds adjunct appointments in the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) and the Allen School for Computer Science and Engineering (CSE). She also serves as an associate member of the Einstein Center for Digital Futures in Berlin, Germany.

David Ribes
Human Centered Design & Engineering (UW Seattle)

David Ribes is a Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. Dr. Ribes’s research focuses on the sociotechnical facets of eScience and how research infrastructures can support scientific investigations across changes in technology, policy and social organization.

Registration open for ‘What Does Law Mean in Crisis?’ a UW Public Lecture co-sponsored by Society + Technology at UW and the Tech Policy Lab

Registration is now open for Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown’s lecture, What Does Law Mean in Crisis? How Crip Feminist Technoscience Will Save Us, which will take place on May 21, 2026, at 6:30 PM at Town Hall Seattle. The event is organized by the Office of Public Lectures, with Society + Technology at UW and the Tech Policy Lab among several campus co-sponsors.

What’s notable about Brown is that they are deeply attuned to living in our times of polycrisis, of accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence, and they carefully, then, offer crip feminist technoscience, which draws on the knowledge of disabled, mad, and neuroexpansive communities, as a method to help us to rethink the promises and limits of regulating technology with law and policy. They advance the idea of bringing “sick people’s wisdom as a vital tool for surviving now and thriving then.”

The event uses a “pay what you will” ticketing model and will include open CART captioning.

Learn more and register

Sponsoring Departments: Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Law (Tech Policy Lab and Society + Technology at UW), Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT), School of Social Work, Disability Studies Program, Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE), The Graduate School

Link: https://www.washington.edu/lectures/events/what-does-law-mean-in-crisis-how-crip-feminist-technoscience-will-save-us-presented-by-the-office-of-public-lectures/

STSS Mixer for UW Community on Emergences — Tues. Nov. 25, 2025, 3:30 PM

The University of Washington’s interdisciplinary Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STSS) community will host its fall mixer on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, at 3:30 PM at the Simpson Center for the Humanities (CMU 202).

This fall’s theme, “Encounters,” invites STSS faculty, staff, and students from UW Seattle, Bothell, Tacoma, and the School of Medicine to share what they’ve been doing with STS across research, teaching, mentorship, and leadership work.

Join for outtakes from the 2025 4S Reverberations conference, the First Monday STSS Reading Group, the graduate certificate program, and the UW Bothell major and minor, and stay for an interactive component to spark conversation about emerging research directions and collaborations between participants.

We are deciding if we should make the mixer hybrid to best include all our colleagues from across our campuses and we want to hear from you about that, and more. We’ve also got a table reserved for a no-host drink at a local brewery after.

Please share your meeting style preferences, projects, and updates by filling out this STSS MIXER form by Tuesday, Nov. 18 to help us best plan an inclusive experience!

Partnership with GIX Brings Society + Technology Affiliates to Bellevue

Society + Technology at UW has partnered with the University of Washington’s Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) to offer a master’s-level course in the Master of Science in Technology Innovation program (MSTI 522): The History and Future of Technology: Responsible Technological Innovation.

GIX is a joint initiative between the UW College of Engineering and the Foster School of Business. The 18-month graduate program in technology innovation emphasizes practical, challenge-based learning across engineering, business, and design, and is housed in UW’s outpost in Bellevue.

The Instructor of Record, Monika Sengul-Jones, Ph.D., Director of Strategy and Operations for Society + Technology at UW, centers the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to explore the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of technological innovation. STS approaches consider technology and innovation as socio-technical and cultural accomplishments that are both informed by and inform social structures of power. Throughout the course, students will cultivate responsible sensibilities as stewards of the social and societal impacts of emerging technologies.

As part of the collaboration with Society + Technology at UW, GIX students will also learn from the tri-campus, cutting-edge network of scholars affiliated with the initiative. Five experts will deliver guest lectures on the relationship between technology and society to this cohort of master’s students. The speaker series also includes a seasoned GIX lecturer who works at SAP to offer insights on responsibility and inclusiveness in enterprise software products. Dina Chawla, a graduate student in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering at UW Seattle, supports the class as a Reader/Grader.

Since 2017, this course has been developed and led by Linda Wagner, David Ribes, and Amanda Menking. In its current iteration, Past and Future of Technology is not only a keystone learning experience for GIX students to explore the historical, philosophical, and cultural foundations of innovation and technology, it is also an unparalleled opportunity to learn from UW’s extensive network of scholars working at this vital intersection.

Guest Speakers

(In order of appearance)

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad

Topic: AI Agents and Responsibilities
Title: Second Voice, First Person: AI Surrogates and Digital Doppelgangers

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad is a Research Scientist at the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Division of Computing and Software Systems at the University of Washington, Bothell. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on artificial intelligence, algorithmic nudging (using algorithms to change human behavior), and personality emulation (software that can act like humans). Ahmad thinks extensively about the social, cultural, and ethical impact of AI and machine learning. His research has been covered by PBS and Discover Magazine. He’s spoken on a panel for the United Nations and in other venues.

Ellie Kemery

Topic: Inclusion and Responsibility in Enterprise Software UX Research

Ellie Kemery is Principal AI User Research Lead for SAP Business AI and is a frequent guest speaker at GIX. Her work seeks to establish a culture of ethical research and design practices across SAP in a way that proactively informs the way teams build intelligent product experiences that all people love. She has worked with or for companies and organizations including Microsoft, IxDA, Design in Public, and Brooks Running. She has a degree from the UW’s Foster School of Business in Human Behavior and Entrepreneurship.

Katy E. Pearce

Topic: Privacy, Technology, and Governance

Katy E. Pearce is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington and holds affiliations with the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies and the Center for an Informed Public. She is an expert in social and political uses of technologies and digital content in the transitioning democracies and semi-authoritarian states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, but primarily Armenia and Azerbaijan. The main focus of her research is the adoption and use of information and communication technologies in diverse cultural, economic, and political contexts, mainly authoritarian post-Soviet states. On the adoption side, Pearce looks at barriers to use—often socioeconomic, but sometimes political or cultural. On the outcome of ICT use side, Pearce studies outcomes like decreasing or increasing inequality due to ICTs, cosmopolitanism, capital enhancement, civic engagement, demand for democracy, and social activism. Methodologically, most of her earlier work is quantitative modeling, while much of her more recent work is qualitative or mixed methods.

Alexis Hiniker

Topic: Habits by Design: Research and Ethics in Human-Computer Interaction

Alexis Hiniker is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington and Director of the User Empowerment Lab. Through her work in human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing, she investigates the ways in which everyday technologies make life worse for their users. Hiniker combines user-centered design methods with theory from a variety of disciplines to design, implement and evaluate new technical systems. Her current projects focus on compulsive technology use, dark patterns, voice interfaces, and arguments online. She has a Ph.D. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington, an M.A. in Learning, Design and Technology from Stanford University, and an A.B. in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Anissa Tanweer

Topic: Data Science and Ethics in Action

Anissa Tanweer is a Senior Social Scientist at the eScience Institute, an Affiliate Faculty member in the Department of Communication, and a sociotechnical expert for the Scientific Software Engineering Center (SSEC). She conducts ethnographic research on the practice and culture of computationally mediated science and applies a sociotechnical lens to the design and implementation of training programs in data-intensive academic research. Tanweer directs the UW Data Science for Social Good summer internship and ran the Data Science Studies Special Interest Group at UW from 2018-2021. Tanweer earned a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Washington. She has published her research on topics such as ethics and data science in journals such as Social Studies of Science, Big Data & Society, and Harvard Data Science Review.