WeAreSTS

You’ve heard of Plato. He’s one of those philosophers from Ancient Greece. Think in the time range 400-350 BCE and you’re in the right range. Plato wrote core works in the Western canon: The Republic, The Timaeus, and so much more. One of his lesser known texts is The Gorgias . That’s this year’s STS1Book . It’s a work massively relevant today. At its heart is a key question for communication: sho...

Will robots steal my job? Will gene editing cure my cancer? HYPE is a fundamental part of science communication, the development of new technologies, and the crucially important interface between business, investment, and new technology. How does HYPE work? Can it be used for good? In this conversation at the 2022 STS1Book celebration at University College London, Gemma Milne discusses her book, S...

As someone who prides herself on being interested in women’s health and progress related to it, Sofia Sancho still had no idea what “menstrual leave” was when it suddenly was all over the news earlier this spring. Menstruation is a regular physiological phenomenon, happening to the vast majority of people with uteruses. Many people manage their periods just fine, but for some they can be extremely...

Natural history documentaries are hugely popular on British television. They offer great examples of science communication, and they have a long history, stretching back to the early days of broadcasting by the BBC, and more. As luck would have it, here in STS, we have an expert in these programmes and the people who create them. Dr Jean-Baptiste Gouyon is Associate Professor of Science Communicat...

Professor Sarah Edwards and Professor Phyllis Illari discuss their contributions the STS’s impact in philosophy of science and medicine. They were lead contributors to two top-rated “impact cases” in UCL’s 2021 entry to the REF assessment, the UK’s research excellence framework. That’s a national review of university research productivity. Sarah’s project involves policy-making about emerging dise...

Dr Michel Wahome presents a wide-ranging critique of the “research for development” (R4D) model in science and technology policy, with special emphasis on its assumptions about innovation and progress. The deepest concerns we should have with this widely used model, she argues, is its deep faith the ability of science alone to solve social problems. The over-emphasis on science and technology alon...

STSNewsRoom #3. Chelsea Tripp reports. The lack of representation on screen is a political issue on everybody’s lips. I investigate how popular streaming platforms, Netflix and Disney+, portray scientists in terms of gender, race, sexuality, neurodivergency, and socio-economic background. Is representation of the scientist moving away from being presented as white, straight, and male? If not, why...

STSNewsRoom 2. Odile Lehnen reports. “What is STS?” This is a question all STS students are asked on a regular basis – when travelling, joining a new sports club, at parties or family reunions, and when being interviewed for jobs. I find the question isn’t as straightforward as most people want. In this episode, I explore what Science and Technology Studies (STS) is really all about. (I study Scie...

Dr Carina Fearnley, Associate Professor of Science Communication, talks about warning research and disaster preparedness. Carina is an expert in disaster warning and public engagement. Her research focuses on ways to improve the effectiveness of warning systems. She’s contributed a lot to communication around risk and warning in the pandemic. Her long-term research focuses on volcano and tsunami w...

We’re talking CAREERS. Here in STS, careers thinking is at the core of our degree programmes. Every tutor has something important to say about careers, we have our “flexible futures” agenda underpinning the degrees, and we make big use of the resources offered by services across all of UCL. In short, we work hard at career development and we work with the pros. Students are keen to connect their s...

ProfJoeCain talks with Dr. Melanie Smallman and Dr. Jean-Baptiste Gouyon about UCL’s new Master’s in Science Communication (MSc). They discuss the philosophy behind the degree, some of its key modules, and how it is designed to balance practical skill development with foundational theory in communications. There also is discussion about how they plan to give this degree global relevance, careers t...

As of November 2021, more than 46.4 million people in the UK have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as part of the biggest mass-immunization programme the country has ever run. Most of us rushed to book our appointments as soon as we received a message, keen to protect ourselves from the virus. However, not everyone has been quite so confident in the vaccine. In this episode, Jasm...

Will robots steal my job? Will gene editing cure my cancer? HYPE is a fundamental part of science communication, the development of new technologies, and the crucially important interface between business, investment, and new technology. How does HYPE work? Can it be used for good? In this interview, Gemma Milne discusses her book, SMOKE AND MIRRORS, and her interest in HYPE as an ever-present phe...

Professor Simon Werrett (UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Science) talks about his award-winning book, THRIFTY SCIENCE. In Britain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the practices of reuse, re-purpose, and recycle were core to the work of what became science. More important, if you follow the trails left by these activities, you’ll find ideas that reorganise how we should think...

Dr Melanie Smallman talks about her meta-study of attitudes across 10 emerging technologies by public, government, and politicians. Her conclusion: we talk quite differently about innovation. Smallman argues those differences matter for how we respond to the changes taking place around us. Science communication and public engagement needs to be smarter about the public it serves. Dr Melanie Smallm...

For April Fool’s Day, we talk about a famous joke in the history of biology. Dr Rebecca Martin interviews Professor Joe Cain about the Snouters. It’s a joke that began with publication of a book in 1961 that told the story of an unusual group of mammals discovered on a remote archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. It was a fiction; a prank; a joke. That joke took on a life of its own as other people re...

James Lighthill, UCL Provost (1979-1989), was the author of a highly influential report to the UK government about artificial intelligence (AI). It questioned what AI was and what it could achieve. Its impact was profound. It was the cause, say some, of the first “AI winter” of the 1970s. Lighthill was one of the leading mathematicians of the 20th century. His work nevertheless was highly engaging...

Professor Charlotte Sleigh talks about the STS1Book for 2021, a book she has co-written with Professor Amanda Rees. It’s called "Humans". In our conversation, we talk about the book and some of its main ideas. We also talk about the book as one in a long series of projects Charlotte has undertaken in the general area of “animal studies,” a research topic in STS that has evolved in important ways i...

BONUS: We pay tribute to our friend and colleague, Dr William Fleming Maclehose (1967-2020). Bill was a historian of medieval medicine and an important part of STS. He was an expert in theories of sleep and sleeping. Bill loved the history of medicine in all its forms and across all the world’s great cultures. This episode is an interview with Bill. Students in STS sometimes interview staff for pr...

What are the similarities between the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic? What can we learn by a comparison? How does history help us understand what’s happening today? One of our experts in science communication, Dr Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, interviews one of our historians of science and medicine, Dr Cristiano Turbil, to answer these questions, and more. Did you know the 1918 ‘Spa...

Every university student has "careers" on the mind, even if they're not sure what they should be thinking about. I talk with the STS Careers Tutor, Dr Jean-Baptiste Gouyon about this subject. He talks about the new STS student-led Careers Task Force. We also talk about many ideas under the title, “careers thinking,” including the philosophy of flexible futures. As a careers tutor, Dr Gouyon is a s...

STS student, Nuzhah Miah, interviews Dr Jack Stilgoe about Evgeny Morozov’s 2014 book,  To Save Everything Click Here , asking him why it’s recommended reading for new students coming into UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The book they are discussing is Evgeny Morozov (2014) To Save Everything Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the urge to fix problems that don’t exist...

TRAILER. We're introducing “WeAreSTS," a new podcast from the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London (UCL). We talk about what we hope to accomplish with the podcast and what listeners can expect to learn. We have a lot planned, and SUBSCRIBE now before you forget. The show host is Professor Joe Cain.   Music credits Music used in this episode includes: Plain Loa...