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 2025
HTS/LMC/PUBP 6743: Science, Technology, & Society: Core Seminar
Professor Robert Rosenberger
Wednesdays, 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.
HTS 6124: Science and Technology Beyond Borders
Professor Amit Prasad
Mondays, 5 — 7.45 p.m.
In the new millennium, science and technology (S&T) suffuse and connect the everyday lives of people across the globe as never before. Along with the depth of S&T’s global impact on everyday life, the shifting global landscape of S&T and with it rising global competition and tensions are also strikingly evident. This course, which draws on a range of histories and sociologies of S&T, has two broad goals: First, to explore the global and transnational landscape of S&T. Second, to critically investigate the impact of shifting international landscape of S&T and whether and how West-centric historiographies and sociologies of S&T continue to influence techno-scientific practices and imaginaries of the present. For example, does the diffusion theory of science and technology fold the descriptions and analyses of the shifting global contours of S&T into a West-centric imaginary. And, if this is so, how do we reorient our imaginaries and practices to better understand and explain not just the circulations of S&T at present, but also the erased connected histories that cut across commonly accepted borders of the nation and/or west/non-west.
PUBP 6403: Scientific Careers and Workplaces
Professor Mary Frank Fox
Wednesdays, 6:30 — 9:15 p.m.
You will acquire a uniquely comprehensive view of scientific careers and workplaces in this seminar -- 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.
LMC 6399: Discovery and Invention
Professor Yanni Loukissas
Monday/Wednesday, 2 — 3:15 p.m.
What makes research creative? In this class, we will explore a number of research methods that can be characterized as creative. Such methods might be broadly defined by the terms “discovery” and “invention.” Creative research can mean collecting evidence about the creative process through interviews. It can mean evaluating the creative use of artifacts using direct observation. It can also mean using creative practice as a mechanism for learning about your own life experiences or those of others. Throughout the term, you will read about creative research methods particularly suited to Digital Media and test them out for yourself. We will begin with a brief introduction to different ways of understanding the research process, and then explore methods used in each of the four disciplinary pillars of the Digital Media Program: 1) Human-Computer Interaction; 2) Media Studies; 3) Design Research; and 4) Science and Technology Studies. Each of you will lead us in the discussion of one reading sometime during the course of the term. Small-scale research projects will give you an opportunity to apply what you learn from those readings. The findings from these research projects will provide the basis for a final report and final project. You will have two options for the final project: extending one of the previously completed research exercises; or, writing your own proposal for future research. This course has no prerequisites, but is required for Master’s and Ph.D. students in Digital Media.