STS Extracurriculars
Research Assistantships | Summer schools | Conferences | Internships | Other
Research Assistantships
Research assistance to Professor Ryan Calo
Drawing on my background in STS, I have provided “expert research assistance” to Ryan Calo during the writing process of his 2022 essay The Scale and the Reactor and his forthcoming book on Law & STS, where he studies what the field of Law & Technology can (and can’t) learn from STS.
Summer schools
STS Summer School @Harvard “Expertise, Trust & Democracy”
Harvard University
July 24-30, 2022
Boston, United States
In the summer of 2022, I attended Harvard’s STS Summer School. This program, led by Sheila Jasanoff, offers students an introduction to the essentials of STS thinking, as well as analytic lexicon and methods to support critical analysis and ethical decision-making on questions at the intersection of science, technology, and policy. The topics that touched on included, among others: STS in a time of war, gene editing and bioethics, pandemic expertise and its problems, public engagement and technologies of trust, governance of platform technologies, and law, expertise & Human Rights. To address them, we were exposed to a mix of lectures, case analyses, and small-group discussions. I also had the opportunity to have a one-on-one meeting with Sheila Jasanoff to discuss my own research project.
This experience was an unparalleled opportunity to broaden my STS theoretical frameworks; deepen my analytical and critical understanding of the interconnections between science, technology, society, and policy; improve my ability to ask better questions about science and technology; and most importantly, create networks of colleagues and friends for potential future collaboration.
6th STS Italia Summer School “Disentangling Futures: Promises, Scenarios, Experiments”
Italian Society of Science and Technology Studies
September 27-October 1, 2022
Padova, Italy
I was admitted to the 6th STS Italia Summer School which took place in Padova, Italy in September of 2022. Given my intention to explore the “techno-legal imaginaries” of American privacy law scholars, I wanted to attend this summer school to take a deeper dive into the STS theoretical concept that has mostly called my attention and which I pretend to build on with my dissertation, namely: the sociotechnical imaginaries. Furthermore, I hoped that the course’s emphasis on the performative role of “futures” and “forward-looking statements” would inspire me with ideas to extend the discussion about the “legal construction of technology” from the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) to the Co-production perspective, where the idea of sociotechnical imaginaries is nested.
Indeed, this summer school allowed me to take a deeper look into Jasanoff’s idea of sociotechnical imaginaries, while also exposing me to a whole body of new literature on the “Sociology of Expectations.” Besides, this experience allowed me to engage in cross-disciplinary communication with experienced scholars and peers working on research projects directly related to my research topic; people with very different backgrounds who were all grappling with promises, futures, and imaginaries of all kinds. And last but not least, it allowed me to meet a group of inspiring women (the “STS girls squad”), with which I have had the chance to create a friendship.
Conferences
21st Science and Democracy Network Annual Meeting
July 28-30, 2022
Boston, United States
Attendee
As part of the STS Summer School @Harvard, I was invited to attend the Science and Democracy Network Annual Meeting. Thanks to this opportunity, I read and attended the presentation of ground-breaking papers on salient issues in the contemporary politics of science and technology.
2022 4S/ESOCITE
December 7-10, 2022
Cholula, Mexico
Presenter
My presentation at 4S/ESOCITE was called “Techno-Legal Imaginaries: A Case Study of American Privacy Law Scholars.” I exposed my initial findings on the evolution of the techno-legal imaginaries of American privacy law scholars in the last 30 years. You can find my presentation slides here.
2023 International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP6) (forthcoming)
June 27-29, 2023
Toronto, Canada (virtual participation)
Presenter
In June of 2023, I will present my paper “Techno-legal imaginaries and the transformation of regulatory agendas on emerging technologies: A case study of American privacy law scholars” at ICPP6 – TORONTO 2023, as part of a panel on the “Transformation of policy and regulatory agendas of emerging technologies: the role of regulators and different stakeholders.” In this paper, I argue that one of the multiple reasons why regulatory agendas about emerging technologies transform is because of changes in the techno-legal imaginaries of legal actors. Therefore, in this piece, I focus on exploring the change in American privacy law scholars’ techno-legal imaginaries, as they transitioned from studying the privacy risks of computers and networks to the risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic decision-making systems.
2023 We Robot conference (forthcoming)
September 29-30, 2023
Boston, Unites States
Presenter
In September of 2023, I will present my paper “Understanding the Techno-legal Imaginaries of American Privacy Law Scholars” at the 2023 We Robot conference. In a world of increasing interdisciplinarity and multi-stakeholders, it is essential for actors in computer science, law, social sciences, and humanities involved in the tech policy environment to understand, engage with, and even contest the imaginaries of their colleagues and counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to that goal, by providing a comprehensive understanding of American privacy law scholars’ techno-legal imaginaries.
Internships
Microsoft Research’s Social Media Collective (SMC) (forthcoming)
June 5-August 25, 2023
Boston, United States
This summer, I will join Microsoft Research’s Social Media Collective as one of the six 2023 Sociotechnical Systems Ph.D. Interns, a cohort of “PhD students studying sociotechnical systems from interdisciplinary perspectives that foster careful (and caring) critique.” During 12 weeks, I will be working with danah boyd and the SMC team to understand the techno-legal imaginaries that underlie American legislators’ and Federal Trade Commissioner’s differing views on the protection of consumer privacy.
In that sense, I expect to use the theoretical concept that I am proposing in my dissertation (“techno-legal imaginaries”) and apply it to study the ideas and visions of a new set of legal actors.
Other
STSS Reading Group at UW—Tacoma
In January 2021, I joined the STS @ UWT Reading Group led by Professor Matthew Weinstein. This group, mainly composed of professors but open to everyone, read and discussed short articles as well as the members’ own research on STS. It was Professor Weinstein’s attempt to build regional support for the transdisciplinary (sociological, anthropological, historical, philosophical, economic) study of science and technology, as well as provide support from UW-Tacoma to the graduate certificate in STS at UW-Seattle. The meetings were held virtually, and one of the first articles we discussed was Kate Crawford’s Can an Algorithm be Agonistic? Ten Scenes from Life in Calculated Publics (2016).
6S Sketch Groups
In 2022 I applied and was admitted as one of the 30 participants of the 2022 6S Sketch Groups, a year-long program designed by the Student Section of Society for the Social Studies of Science (6S) to facilitate deeper relationships among students and early career scholars of STS and allow for diverse kinds of mentoring. For 12 months, STS Faculty led us through a research design and methods curriculum drafted by program leads. Discussed topics included the practice of sketching, STS Infrastructures, sharing STS data, and STS career trajectories and academic life.
UW Libraries Research Communication and Equity Fellowship
In January of 2023 I was chosen to be a UW Libraries Research Communication and Equity Fellow. This program is aimed at Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) graduate students who want to share their interdisciplinary and open research through physical artifacts that visually communicate their work.
As part of the fellowship, I prepared a poster and a short video that allow spectators to gain a glimpse (a “sneak peek”) into the techno-legal imaginaries that are currently driving privacy law scholarship in the United States. For building these artifacts, I relied on quotes taken from my archival research and from my oral history interviews. Both artifacts were exhibited physically in the UW Libraries Research Commons, where an in-person reception for Fellows also took place.
MARÍA P. ÁNGEL 