{"id":4,"date":"2022-11-02T18:09:55","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T18:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/stpl\/?page_id=4"},"modified":"2026-01-29T23:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:35:10","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/stpl\/","title":{"rendered":"Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Welcome to the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life. STPL serves as a platform for collaborative research, graduate training, and public engagement on problems at the intersection of science, technology, environment, and society.<\/p>\n

STPL\u2019s collaborative research projects bring together USC faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows to investigate how authorized knowledge is produced in contested settings. Its recent project, \u201cPrecarious Ecologies<\/a>,\u201d funded by the Mellon Foundation, focused on how activists and scientists collaborate to generate knowledge about environmental hazards. STPL\u2019s current project, \u201cThe City on Life Support<\/a>,\u201d considers Los Angeles as a laboratory for the production of knowledge about planetary health.<\/p>\n

The Center also takes an active role in training graduate students across USC\u2019s schools. Its Graduate Certificate Program in Science and Technology Studies<\/a> enables Ph.D. students to forge connections between their home departments and the interdisciplinary field of STS. Through summer research stipends and an annual graduate-student symposium, the Center provides students with a venue for conducting and sharing original research.<\/p>\n

Finally, through its public-engagement activities<\/a>, STPL seeks to foster intellectual exchange both within and beyond USC. The Center hosts public lectures, small seminars, workshops, and thematic working groups with the aim of generating insight into historical and contemporary formations of expert knowledge.<\/p>\n

We welcome inquiries from students and potential collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n Recent News \n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n \u201cThe City on Life Support\u201d: Presentation by Prof. Sam Silva on January 30\n\n <\/h3>\n \n \n
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On Friday, January 30, from 12 to 1:30 p.m., the research team for The City on Life Support: Los Angeles as a Laboratory for Planetary Health<\/a> will hear a presentation by Sam Silva<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Population and Public Health Sciences. Silva will discuss his research on air quality and atmospheric chemistry, including his work on measuring toxic residues in the aftermath of the 2025 Eaton Fire. This event continues a series of presentations and site visits that are taking place over the course of the academic year featuring faculty from numerous component schools of USC. Each talk brings scientists and practitioners into dialogue with humanistic social scientists to explore objects of shared concern.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in taking part \u2014 or in getting involved with \u201cThe City on Life Support\u201d more broadly \u2014 please write to James Bradley, Postdoctoral Researcher with STPL, at jamesb20@usc.edu<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n \n

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\n \n New STPL Initiative: \u201cSimulation as a Technique of Knowledge Production\u201d\n\n <\/h3>\n \n \n
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During the spring semester, STPL is convening a group of USC faculty around the theme of \u201cSimulation as a Technology of Knowledge Production.\u201d It will join humanists and social scientists, whose work reflects critically on how simulations generate provisional knowledge about the future, with a set of practitioners of simulation. Activities will include a series of visits to sites where simulation techniques are being developed \u2014 in climate futures, biotechnology, world-building, and other domains.<\/p>\n

The project emerges from a set of empirical and conceptual questions: We are faced with myriad societal challenges that require anticipating an uncertain future. Technical experts and policymakers rely in part on\u00a0simulations and models to help plan in the face of such uncertainty. But exactly how do\u00a0simulations and model-making techniques perform this work of anticipation in fields ranging from urban planning to resource management to private-sector consulting? What epistemic assumptions are built into these tools of\u00a0simulation?\u00a0How do the designers of\u00a0simulations make decisions about the ways their anticipated futures will unfold? And how, in turn, do strategic actors draw on\u00a0simulations in defining the course of future action?\u00a0This project will critically address the social and political implications of such technical practices of future-making.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in getting involved with this project, please write to Peter Ekman, STPL\u2019s Coordinator of Programs, at pekman@usc.edu<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n \n

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\n \n Updates from STPL Faculty\n\n <\/h3>\n \n \n
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Christina Dunbar-Hester, Professor of Communication, published an article titled \u201cPin the Tail on the Researcher: From Distributed to Meshy Accountability in Decentralized Social Media<\/a>\u201d in the Journal of Community Informatics<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tara McPherson, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, has received three additional years of grant funding for the Reclaim Project<\/a>, a student-centered research initiative concerning stereotypes of masculinity and the role of progressive media. It is part of the larger Data Fluencies<\/a> project based at Simon Fraser University. Previous work from the project has been featured in film festivals and gallery exhibitions.<\/p>\n

Mike Ananny, Associate Professor Communication and Journalism, published an article titled \u201cAI Governance as Scale Work: Synthetic Journalism Across Scalar Collisions<\/a>\u201d in Information, Communication & Society<\/em>. With Matt Pearce of Rebuild Local News, he published \u201cHow We\u2019re Using AI<\/a>,\u201d a Columbia Journalism Review<\/em>\u00a0edited collection of leading journalists, technologists, publishers, and policymakers reflecting on their relationships to Generative Artificial Intelligence. During the spring semester, Ananny is the Orion Visiting Scholar in the Arts in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria, Canada.<\/p>\n

Andrew Lakoff, STPL\u2019s Director and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, published an essay titled \u201cA Regulatory State of Exception,\u201d on the politics of vaccine approval during the Covid-19 pandemic, in the collection An Anthropology of Global Immunization:\u00a0Vaccine Politics and Realities in Ethnographic Perspective<\/a><\/em> (Berghahn, 2026),\u00a0edited by Rebecca Irons, Sahra Gibbon, Joanna Cook, and Aaron Parkhurst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n Recent Publications from STPL Affiliates\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n \n Planning for the Wrong Pandemic: Covid-19 and the Limits of Expert Knowledge\n\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n \n \n
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STPL Director Andrew Lakoff\u2019s most recent book,\u00a0Planning for the Wrong Pandemic: Covid-19 and the Limits of Expert Knowledge<\/a><\/em>, was recently released in the U.S. by Polity Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n \n

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\n \n \n Timing the Future Metropolis: Foresight, Knowledge, and Doubt in America\u2019s Postwar Urbanism\n\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n \n \n
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Peter Ekman, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture and STPL\u2019s Coordinator of Programs, has just published his first book,\u00a0Timing the Future Metropolis: Foresight, Knowledge, and Doubt in America\u2019s Postwar Urbanism<\/a><\/em>, with Cornell University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n \n

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\n \n \n Precarious Petroleum: Volatile Reservoirs, Varied Natural Gas Compositions, and Development in 1960s Iran\n\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n \n \n
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Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani, Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and Environmental Studies, recently published an article in\u00a0Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East<\/em>\u00a0titled \u201cPrecarious Petroleum: Volatile Reservoirs, Varied Natural Gas Compositions, and Development in 1960s Iran<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n Subscribe to our Newsletter\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n
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\n Contact Us\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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STPL Office<\/h3>\n \n \n
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Taper Hall (THH) 309G
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\n stpl@usc.edu<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n \n
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Director of STPL<\/h3>\n \n \n
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Andrew Lakoff
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