Beck Corby
Area of Research / Interest: transgender policy
Undergraduate Education Institution: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Undergraduate Major: Science, Technology & Society
Biography: Beck (they/them) is broadly interested in queer, feminist, and anti-racist STS, social movements, expertise, and science policy. Their research focuses on state-level policies managing or impacting transgender people and the role that experts play in shaping these diverse policy climates. Email: corbyr@rpi.edu
Jonathan Givan
Hometown / Country: Chelsea, Alabama
Area of Research / Interest: Black Studies, Sound Studies, Technology Studies
Undergraduate Education Institution: Auburn University
Undergraduate Major: Computer Science
Biography: Jonathan Givan hails from Chelsea, Alabama and spent a lot of his time there studying science and music while also being immersed in Black history and culture. All of this inspired him to examine the intersection of Black culture, history, music, engineering, and future building within his own research that centers around the AKAI MPC. Email: givanj@rpi.edu
Alexander Janseth
Area of Research / Interest: Digital Studies; Infrastructure Studies; Technology Studies; Media Studies
Undergraduate Education Institution: Bard College
Undergraduate Major: Film Studies
Biography: Alex is a 5th year PhD Candidate in STS. His research interests cover a wide range of disciplines, including Technology Studies, Media Studies, Resource Geography, Urban Studies, Digital Studies, Infrastructure Studies, Policy Studies, to name a few. His doctoral work covers "Critical Minerals" and Infrastructure Policy in the US, examining the material-discursive formation of "criticality" within US Policy and the materiality of minerals in planetary-scale computational infrastructure. In addition to a B.A. from Bard College, Alex also holds an M.A. in Media Studies from the New School, where his initial interest in digital media and minerals began. While at RPI Alex also worked with distinguished scholar James Malazita on a critical and innovative approach to CS Education. He also loves TV and can recite The Simpsons from memory. Email: jensea@rpi.edu
Caroline Mason
Area of Research / Interest: Information Infrastructures
Undergraduate Education Institution: James Madison University
Undergraduate Major: History
Biography: Caroline Mason is a PhD Candidate and HASS fellow in the Science and Technology Department. She has a background in the history of technology and her current research interests revolve around the technologies of historical knowledge production. At the intersection of heritage studies, infrastructure studies, and library and information studies, her doctoral research concerns itself with the politics of global-scale digital libraries and archives and is specifically focused on the World Digital Library (wdl.org). Email: masonc2@rpi.edu
Gabriel Medina-Kim
Hometown / Country: San Francisco, California
Area of Research / Interest: feminist and antiracist science & technology studies; decolonial computing; social justice pedagogy; making & doing
Undergraduate Education Institution: California Polytechnic State University
Undergraduate Major: Computer Science
Biography: Gabriel is a PhD student studying the intersections of computing and feminist & anti-racist STS. His interests center anti-oppressive transformations in computing, critical participation, and what it means to “do good” in technoscience. Specifically, he mobilizes cultural and sociotechnical systems lenses using anti-racist, feminist, and decolonial thinking. His research extends his undergraduate training, teaching, and research at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he received a B.S. in Computer Science and two minors: women’s & gender studies and science, technology, & society. Gabriel is a 2020-21 awardee of the California State University’s Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP). Email: meding2@rpi.edu
Yoehan Oh
Hometown / Country: Jeonju, South Korea
Area of Research / Interest: Platform studies; critical technoscience studies; Asian cultural studies of computing and data
Undergraduate Education Institution: Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
Undergraduate Major: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Biography: Yoehan (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate investigating the social studies of a South Korean Internet platform's research and development from the platform imperialism and expansionism perspective. His research interests include (a) platform studies, digital STS, software studies, information infrastructure studies, critical algorithm and data studies; (b) critical technoscience studies based on feminist, postcolonial, indigenous, and anti-racist thoughts; and (c) Asian studies of computing and data cultures. He is born in Jeonju and raised mostly in Seoul, both in the Republic of Korea. Yoehan is a 2022-23 Dissertation Fellow of the The D. Kim Foundation for the History of Science and Technology in East Asia. Email: ohy@rpi.edu
Pratama Yudha Pradheksa
Area of Research / Interest: politics, science, technology, the environment, knowledge, energy, and history
Undergraduate Education Institution: Universitas Brawijaya
Undergraduate Major: Sociology
Biography: Pratama Yudha Pradheksa studies energy politics as part of his PhD program. He was born in Indonesia and earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Universitas Brawijaya in 2010, as well as a master's degree in STS from Virginia Tech under the Fulbright program in 2017. He has concluded a position as a researcher at Loughborough University under the Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) initiative at COP26 and as a research fellow at Japan's Takagi Fund for Citizen Science in 2021. His latest publications are in South East Asia Research, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition (forthcoming), and COP26 policy brief. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, cooking, listening to rock/metal music, and watching movies. Email: pradhp@rpi.edu
Nishanth Kunnukattil Shaji
Hometown / Country: Thrissur, India
Area of Research / Interest: Medical STS
Undergraduate Education Institution: IIT Hyderabad
Undergraduate Major: Anthropology
Biography: Nishanth is a graduate student at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at RPI. His first published paper is titled Grappling with Morphine: A Local History of Painkiller Use in Kerala, India (Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 2021). His area of focus falls broadly within the realms of care, technology, biomedicine, and pain. That said, theoretically, he often finds himself wrestling with the ‘isms’ of Marx and the postcolonial. When not mulling over all-things academia, you are likely to find him genuflecting and singing paeans to the elder gods of Heavy Metal. Email: kunnun@rpi.edu
N. Bucky Stanton
Area of Research / Interest: History and Anthropology of science and technology, anthropology of archaeology, history and anthropology of energy systems, Greece
Undergraduate Education Institution: Drexel University
Undergraduate Major: History
Biography: N. Bucky Stanton is a PhD Candidate in the department of Science & Technology Studies. He was awarded the RPI HASS Fellowship in 2021 and 2022 to support his dissertation work and also received the RPI Founders Award of Excellence in 2021. Arkadian Pasts and Futures investigates natural and cultural resource extraction in the central Peloponnese, exploring the history and politics of archaeology, paleontology, energy, and modernity in Greece and beyond. He is currently an elected Early Career Representative for the Early Career Interest Group, as well as the social media manager, for the Society for the History of Technology which supports the preeminent journal, Technology & Culture. He is also producer for the daily podcast and archive project COVIDCalls, which tracks experience of pandemic as socio-technical disaster. Email: stantn2@rpi.edu
Jamie Steele
Hometown / Country: Georgia, USA
Area of Research / Interest: feminist technoscience, digital studies, history of technology, critical AI studies
Undergraduate Education Institution: Georgia Southern University
Undergraduate Major: Philosophy
Biography: Jamie Steele is a 5th year STS student in the PhD program, and a psychotherapist. Jamie is from Georgia and has recently relocated away from Troy and is currently living in Alexandria, VA. During her time in the program, she has thought about and written on a variety of topics, including mental health technologies and policies; gender and voice assistant technologies; the patenting of sex toys; and understanding the discrepancies between actual artificial intelligence technologies and how these technologies operate as cultural objects.