Prof. Marisol de la Cadena, Professor of STS and Anthropology, has been awarded the 2025 Vega Medal in Gold by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG). At the Vega Symposium on April 24, 2025, the Swedish Royal Family will present the award medal, followed by an open lecture by Prof. de la Cadena.

Please see the full announcement here:

https://ssag.se/english/

The UC Davis Center for Artificial Intelligence and Experimental Futures (CAIEF) promotes the democratic governance of AI systems by engaging diverse stakeholders in processes of creative worldmaking—crafting the world of tomorrow, together. The center takes an experimental humanities approach that combines fundamental research on the social dimensions of AI with forward-looking research on designing sociotechnical systems. CAIEF explores the cultural narratives, discursive practices, and imagined futures that shape decisions about AI and influence the course of its development.

Prof. Con Diaz’s book Software Rights has been announced as the winner of the 2020 Computer History Museum Prize, awarded by the Society for the History of Technology’s Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society.

A new, open-access collection of essays about techniques of speculation in modern history, featuring contributions by Joe Dumit, Mark Jerng, Colin Milburn, and other colleagues.

Jeanne Cortiel, Christine Hanke, Jan Simon Hutta, and Colin Milburn (eds.), Practices of Speculation: Modeling, Embodiment, Figuration (Bielefeld: transcript, 2021)

STS Professor Emily Merchant has published a new book about the history of demography and population control in the United States.

Emily Merchant, Building the Population Bomb (Oxford University Press, 2021)

Emily Merchant, Brenna Henn, Tina Rulli, and Annie O’Connor explain "Why DNA Is No Key to Social Equality"

Denmark's most prestigious arts award goes to the exhibition and research project "Yet, it moves!" The exhibition is realized in collaboration with the four scientific research partners DARK, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen; Arts at CERN in Geneva; the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, and the Program in Performance Studies and ModLab, University of California, Davis.

Hipolito Angel Cerros, who expects to graduate in the spring, won a seat on the Lindsay City Council (Tulare County). Hipolito is a Science and Technology Studies major (emphasis in data and media technologies) with a minor in technology management, and he plans to attend law school.

To celebrate the publishing of Prof. Con Diaz's book 'Software Rights' UC Davis STS held a small book birthday party.

This is a year-long non-resident research fellowship from the law school at George Mason University, which will support Professor Diaz's research on intellectual property law.

A new perspective on United States software development, seen through the patent battles that shaped our technological landscape.

STS Professor Emily Merchant has been named one of the 2018-19 Aggie Heroes — students, staff and faculty chosen throughout the academic year for “using their talents and powers for the greater good of our university and beyond.”

Prof. Merchant and the other Aggie Heroes were recognized at a reception held at the Chancellor's Residence on May 30. Please read about their contributions below at the following links:

Recent UC Davis graduate Nitika Mummidivarapu (Class of 2019) will be going to Cambridge University under a prestigious Gates-Cambridge Scholarship to pursue advanced study in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology. She says that coursework in STS and English helped her forge a path leading from biochemistry to the history of science and then to medical school, looking ahead to a multilayered career as a physician and a writer.

My Journey to Gates-Cambridge

This is a year-long non-resident research fellowship from the law school at George Mason University, which will support Professor Diaz's research on intellectual property law.

Book Description: