Program on Science, Technology and Society at Harvard

Harvard Kennedy School of Government | Harvard University

Events

STS Circle

The STS Circle at Harvard meets weekly during the academic semester. For Spring 2025, all meetings are planned to take place in person on Mondays, from 12:15-2:00 p.m., in CGIS South S050, 1730 Cambridge Street unless otherwise noted. Sandwich lunches will be provided. To receive the abstract and bio for each talk, and to register to attend, please join our mailing list.

STS Circle schedule poster

Spring 2025

Feb. 3:
Henry Austin (Harvard Kennedy School, Global Observatory on Genome Editing)
Digitization, Memory, and Contested Sovereignties in Representing Human Life
Feb. 10:
Jayita Sarkar (University of Glasgow, History)
Rössing Uranium Limited in Apartheid Namibia: Corporate Social Responsibility for Anti-Decolonization Efforts
Feb. 24:
Jeffrey Fossett (Harvard Business School)
Performativity, Complexity, and Framing in the FCC Spectrum Incentive Auction
Mar. 3:
Kerry Ryan Chance (University of Bergen, Norway, Anthropology)
Eco-Anxiety and Climate Urgency in the Mother City
Mar. 10:
Holly Buck (University at Buffalo, Environment & Sustainability; 2024-2025 Harvard Radcliffe-Salata Climate Justice Fellow)
Net Zero Climate Targets: The Gulf between Science and Social Representation
Mar. 24:
Gili Kliger (Stanford University, History)
Found in Translation: Empire and the Invention of the French Social Sciences
Mar. 31:
Nicole Bassoff (Harvard Kennedy School)
Smart is Power: U.S. Cities and Urban Mobilization in the Digital Age
Apr. 7:
Michael Zanger-Tishler (Harvard University, Sociology & Social Policy)
State Data and the Production of Quantitative Knowledge
Apr. 14:
Yamini Aiyar (Brown University, Watson Institute)
Technology for Votes: The Intersection of Technology, Welfare and Politics in India
Apr. 21:
Graham Jones (MIT, Anthropology)
It's Storytime! Children’s Picturebooks and Familial Practices of Techno-scientific Literacy

» More information and past schedules

Science & Democracy Lecture Series

Once a semester, the STS Program, with co-sponsorship from other local institutions, hosts an installation in its Science and Democracy Lecture Series.

McQuillan Institute Launch Symposium event poster

October 25, 2024, 9:00am-6:30pm
Loeb House, 17 Quincy Street

This symposium introduces the work of the McQuillan Institute for Science, Technology and the Human Future through a collaboration with the Program on Science, Technology and Society (STS) at Harvard. The program highlights how STS scholarship, and research on science and technology more broadly, can inform some of the most important challenges currently facing human societies, from digital and climate governance to rethinking the role of technical expertise in law and democratic politics. We close with a reflection on reimagining the future of technological societies through conversations between artists and social scientists. Register and view the full program here.


» Lecture series archive

Workshops and Panels

April 11, 2025, 1:00pm-3:00pm
HKS, Malkin Penthouse (Littauer 4th Floor)

As students, we are increasingly experiencing our years of schooling “online.” With the advent of Generative AI, some conversations about how technology is changing and should change learning are afoot in newspaper opinion sections and faculty meetings. Harvard has recently inaugurated several efforts to respond to Generative AI, including the creation of task force on GenAI and the issuance of responsible experimentation guidelines, yet questions of how these technologies are already changing what learning means at Harvard have yet to be thoroughly explored.


» Workshops and panels archive

Program news

STS Circle Spring 2025 begins on February 3, 2025.

The 2025-2026 STS Fellows application is now OPEN. Application deadline has been extended to March 14, 2025.

Science & Democracy Lecture Series, featuring Timothy Mitchell, Columbia University, Middle Eastern Studies

Register to attend the launch symposium on October 25 for the McQuillan Institute for Science, Technology and the Human Future.

Sheila Jasanoff was honored with the Phi Beta Kappa Alpha Iota Excellence in Teaching prize.

Congratulations to the winner of the STS Undergraduate Essay Prize, Andrew Charroux, and to the honorable mentions, Joshua Fang and Maya Rosen! Watch videos here to learn more about their winning papers.

Read about Harvard STS Fellow Michael Cheng (HLS '24) in this feature, Composing a Path, Bar by Bar.

Past STS Fellow Makoto "Mak" Takahashi shares his latest publication which came from his time at the Harvard STS Program. Read the publication HERE.

Sheila Jasanoff contributed to a recent essay collection by the HKS Carr Center on Human Rights Policy commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The complete publication, entitled “Making a Movement: The History and Future of Human Rights,” can be found here, with a copy of Jasanoff’s essay on science, technology and human rights here.


» Program news archive