Georgia Miller was a Visiting Research Fellow with the Harvard STS Program for the spring 2014 semester. Georgia’s research investigates the development and implementation of nanotechnology innovation and regulatory policy. She explores how socio-technical imaginaries drive innovation policy and are mobilised within it, the co-production of expertise and political order, how the framing of governance debates is shaped by and affects power relations and interests, and how such framing affects regulatory and policy initiatives as well as opportunities for public participation. Georgia is supported by an Overseas Travel Fellowship from the Australian Nanotechnology Network.

Georgia’s research interests centre on technology policy making in contexts of high scientific uncertainty, strong commercial aspirations, and low levels of public engagement. Her PhD thesis uses Australia’s experience of nanotechnology as a primary case study. Georgia’s study investigates the extent to which government institutions and their discursive regimes have supported reflection on the purpose, assumptions and broader implications of nanotechnology. Georgia questions critically the extent to which decision makers have moved beyond ‘risk’ framing to integrate assessments of nanotechnology’s societal dimensions, and the outputs of public engagement, in their work.

Georgia received a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Honours) from the University of New South Wales in 2003. After graduating, she worked as the Environment Liaison Officer to the New South Wales parliament for the states’ peak environment groups, and as an adviser to Australian Senator Kerry Nettle. From 2005 to 2012, Georgia was coordinator of the Nanotechnology Project for Friends of the Earth Australia, an environment and social justice NGO. From 2010-2012 Georgia was a member of the Ministerial Stakeholder Advisory Council for the National Enabling Technologies Strategy, and a member of the Standards Australia working group on nanometrology.

PUBLICATIONS

Miller, G and G Scrinis (2011), ‘Nanotechnology and the extension and transformation of inequity’, in S. Cozzens and J. Wetmore (eds), Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society Volume 2: Nanotechnology and the Challenges of Equity, Equality and Development, 1st edition, pp. 109-126, Dordrecht: Springer

Miller, G and G Scrinis (2010), ‘The role of NGOs in governing nanotechnologies: Challenging the ‘benefits versus risks’ framing of nanotech innovation’, in G Hodge, D Bowman and A Maynard (eds), International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies, pp. 409-445, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar