*STS Circle at Harvard* *[image: line.gif] * * * *Sara Wylie * *HASTS, MIT* * * on
*ExtrACT: Studying Chemicals and Corporations through STS in Practice * Monday, October 18th 12:15-2:00 p.m. 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106 [image: line.gif] Lunch is provided. Please RSVP to [email protected] by Thursday, October 14th. *Abstract: C*an STS be practical and experimental? This talk examines novel scientific and social scientific research developed in response the contemporary nation-wide boom in natural gas extraction. Gas drilling “here, and now” is transforming social, physical, legal and biological landscapes across the U.S. What role is the academy playing in revealing, mediating, studying and redressing the threats posed by this industry? What role could and should it play? This talk analyzes first innovative database development by scientists that called into question the safety of chemicals used in natural gas extraction, and follows the storm of regulatory and social controversies it helped create. Second, it presents ExtrAct, an experimental research group I co-directed, that is producing online databasing and mapping tools to help communities study, monitor and respond to this industry. This talk explores the results of ‘practicing STS’ to develop alternative means for grass roots monitoring of this industry and its environmental health effects. *Biography: *Sara Wylie is an ABD student in MIT’s History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society Program (HASTS) Program. She is finishing up her dissertation “Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds: an STS analysis of the American Natural Gas Industry”. Her dissertation studies the natural gas industry in the United States, particularly the process of identifying human health hazards associated with the chemically intensive process Hydraulic Fracturing. Her work combines ethnographic and applied research methods. Her applied research involved developing web-based tools to help communities and experts across the country study and hold extractive industries accountable for their social and environmental impacts. This project called ExtrAct was developed in collaboration with artist and technologist Chris Csikszentmihalyi, in MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media. She seeks to develop new modes of studying and intervening in large-scale social issues such endocrine disrupting chemicals and corporate accountability through a fusion of social scientific, scientific and art/design practices. She continues to investigate those interests through teaching interdisciplinary studio art and design classes at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) on Laboratory and Science Studies. A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/
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