The Certificate in Science, Technology, and Society is designed for degree-seeking graduate students at Georgia Tech. This certificate is for students who would like to demonstrate additional competence in some aspect of STS or special competence in STS in their home discipline. The certificate is open to students in good standing in any graduate program at Georgia Tech.
The 12-credit certificate program helps students to:
- Understand the social, cultural, and epistemic dynamics of science and technology
- Explore these dynamics across world societies and cultures
- Develop sensitivity to issues of gender, race, and justice across areas of knowledge, including engineering, medicine, environment, cognition, security, innovation, design
- Employ STS approaches as scholars or practitioners (e.g. engineers, scientists, or policymakers)
Program of Study (Four Courses Total):
- Core Course: One Required
- HTS 6743 / PUBP 6743 / LMC 6743: STS Core Seminar
- HTS 6118: Science, Technology and the Economy
- HTS 6121 / INTA 8803: Science, Technology and Security
- HTS 6123 / LMC 8803: Social and Cultural Studies of Biomedicine
- HTS 6124: Science and Technology Beyond Borders
- PUBP 6748 / LMC 6748: Social Justice, Critical Theory and Philosophy of Design
- LMC 6749 / PUBP 6749: Feminist Theory and STS
- Up to One Other Elective, Subject to Student Interest and STS Coordinator Approval
- Many appropriate courses are offered across the Ivan Allen College and the Institute, for example, CS 8893: Cognition and Culture
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STS Courses for Fall 2024
HTS/LMC/PUBP 6743: Science, Technology, & Society: Core Seminar, Instructor: Robert Rosenberger
Mondays, 6:30 – 9:15 p.m.
The STS Core Seminar serves as a general introduction to the ideas and themes of the field of Science & Technology Studies and its various overlapping discourses. We cover major figures, concepts, case studies, and core readings. The course is structured around visiting guest class instructors, professors from across campus who bring their special perspective on STS to our class. The course is also broadly interdisciplinary, and includes readings from sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, media studies, design, and other disciplines. We consider science and technology in their various social and political situations, and as such this course (and the STS Grad Certificate courses generally) may be of interest to graduate students from across Georgia Tech. The STS Core Seminar also functions as the one required course for the STS Graduate Certificate, and is offered every fall.
LMC/PUBP 6749: Feminist Theory and STS, Instructor: Lisa Yaszek
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2 – 3:15 p.m.
This course is an advanced science, technology and society (STS) seminar in feminist theory. Science and Technology Studies (STS) matured in an historical period that saw an explosion of theoretical inquiry in humanities and social sciences, including the significant development of feminist theory. Therefore, much research in STS reflects and refracts issues and ideas related to principles of feminist theory. Moreover, feminist analyses have developed into a distinct mode of inquiry within STS, providing both original theoretical frameworks and essential critiques of established perspectives. This course provides sustained attention to the productive intersections of STS and feminist theory, intersections which open out inextricably into issues of race, masculinity, and LGBTQ+ studies.
HTS 6123: Social and Cultural Studies of Biomedicine, Instructor: Jennifer Singh
Thursdays, 5 – 7:45 p.m.
This course is a graduate seminar that explores current scholarship in the social and cultural studies of science, technology, and biomedicine in the 21st century. Although many of the themes addressed have a long history, the emphasis will be on recent interdisciplinary science and technology studies scholarship of current conditions, drawing together work in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and related fields. Objects of attention range in scale from molecules to bodies to environments of risk, and the texts for this course attend to diverse contexts of laboratory practices, clinical encounters, scientific research, and broader social debates.
HTS 6002: Proseminar History of Technology, Instructor: Helen Anne Curry
Tuesdays, 5 – 7:45 p.m.
In this seminar, we will explore recent literature in the history of technology. Our collective aim is to ask and answer the question “What is the history of technology?” The assigned readings will introduce key concerns, dominant approaches, and methodological novelties in the (broadly defined) field. The readings will also challenge easy assumptions about what technologies are, where to find them, who creates them, and what their consequences have been. Students will have the opportunity to explore historical research and writing.
PUBP 4823/6403: Scientific Careers and Workplaces (for undergraduate or graduate credit), Instructor: Mary Frank Fox
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 9:15 p.m.
The seminar offers key* perspectives toward understanding scientific careers and workplaces.
*You will acquire a uniquely comprehensive view of scientific careers and workplaces – valuable whether you work in these environments, study them, or both.
Topics include:
- Science and engineering workforces: supply, demand, salaries, career entry, career exits.
- Workplaces of universities, national laboratories, industrial research/development: priorities, funding, staffing, structures, and cultures.
- Experiences of doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty, and research personnel.
- Ways that scientific careers and workplaces are evolving and changing.
- Policies bearing on scientific careers and workplaces.
PHIL 4803: AI & Ethics, Instructor: Justin Biddle
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5 – 6:15 p.m.
This course will explore the ethical and philosophical dimensions of artificial intelligence (AI). AI – and related fields of data science and machine learning (ML) – are transforming the world in which we live. They have the potential to bring tremendous benefits, but they also involve risks, including risks of privacy harms; human rights violations; social injustice and inequality; alienation, and – according to some – human extinction. In this course, we will examine conceptual tools and frameworks that deepen our understanding of the ethical and philosophical issues associated with AI; we will probe these tools and frameworks in the context of current cases and challenges (including discussions of bias, misinformation, surveillance, autonomous vehicles, machine consciousness, and others), and we will explore policies and standards that help us to realize our shared goals and values.
LMC 6399: Discovery & Invention, Instructor: Yanni Loukissas
Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:30 – 4:45 p.m.
What does “good design” mean for digital artifacts? In order to answer this question in a rigorous way, you will need to adopt some sort of design research method. Such methods, which are the subject of this course, are innumerable. But they might be broadly characterized by the terms discovery and invention. Design research can mean collecting evidence about the process of design through interviews. It can mean evaluating the use of design artifacts using direct observation. It can also mean using design as a mechanism for learning about your own life experiences or those of others. Throughout the term, you will read about design research methods particularly suited to digital media and test them out for yourself. We will begin with a brief introduction to design and then explore methods with fundamentally different assumptions: scientific, interpretive, reflexive, critical, and speculative, to name a few. Finally, we will wrap up with a discussion of social justice in design research. There will be a number of assignments, which will be graded using a contract system (see below). Each of you will lead us in the discussion of one reading sometime during the course of the term. Small-scale design research projects will give you an opportunity to apply what you learn from those readings. Finally, the findings from your own research projects will provide the basis for a final research report in which you answer the question posed above: what does “good design” mean? This course has no prerequisites but is required for Master’s and Ph.D. students in Digital Media.