SFIS Newsletter - January 2019

Interdisciplinary exploration in Antarctica

Being intrepid explorers as well as professors, Diana Bowman and Jamey Wetmore led ASU’s inaugural study abroad expedition with seven students to the frozen continent of Antarctica in December. Read about their chilling adventure of discovery. 

Students help advance sustainability in Nepal and China

Nalini Chhetri and Netra Chhetri were featured in an article on the Study Abroad trips they lead in the summer focused on engaging communities in sustainable growth and renewable energy. The 2019 session, called “Innovation in Green Growth in China and Nepal” will depart June 8 and offer students in-field experiences in sustainable and integrated agriculture. The study abroad program is supported by the Rob and Melani Walton Global Scholarships featured in this story.

Confronting complex socio-economic and environmental problems

SFIS’ Mary Jane Parmentier was invited by the University of Concepcion (UDEC), in Concepcion, Chile, to co-teach a workshop on interdisciplinary research and sustainability. Graduate students in the university’s environmental studies, public policy and geography units participated in the week-long course, offered by the School of Environmental Studies. Combining academic and fieldwork, the students and faculty visited the community of Coronel which features energy and fish industries. Students designed applied research to confront complex socio-economic and environmental problems resulting in pollution and a lack of opportunities for the local population.  

Balancing the speed of innovation and regulation

As the rate of technology innovation continues to accelerate, there is a growing gap between what can be achieved with new technologies, and the regulations and frameworks that ensure they are used responsibly and safely. Whether the technology in question is as seemingly esoteric as artificial intelligence and blockchain, as mundane as dockless scooters, or as complex as smart cities, there is a growing need for innovation in how we regulate. We must ensure that emerging technological capabilities are fully harnessed for social and economic good. In this panel discussion from this year’s CES conference, SFIS’s Andrew Maynard joins participants from Deloitte, the Office of the Arizona Attorney General, and Baker Botts LLP to explore ways of balancing the speed of innovation with innovative approaches to regulation.
Maynard was recently featured in an ASU Now article on how humans are pushing the boundaries of innovation.

SFIS student leading conference

As one of ASU two University Innovation Fellows, Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology PhD Student Steven Weiner is creating a new two-day conference to promote interdisciplinary collaboration across the university. The conference will be called The University Symposium on Innovation through Leadership, Openness and Education — or UnSILOEd.Read more in ASU Now.

Christy Spackman has been awarded a two-month Leibniz fellowship at the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany, to work on her book “Making Nothing.” The book examines how scientific and technological innovation changed the taste of bottled and municipal water throughout the twentieth-century in the United States and France.

Professor Bob Cook-Deegan was elected by the The Hastings Center as one of their 18 new Fellows. He joins a group whose outstanding accomplishments have informed scholarship and/or public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, life sciences research, and the environment. The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit bioethics research institution founded in 1969 that addresses fundamental ethical and social issues in health care, science, and technology.

Events 

Higher Education Re-Imagined

February 7

CSPO Conversations: Higher Education Re-Imagined

Sun Devil Fitness activities for SFIS students

February 20 

RSVP Here

ASU Open Door 2019

February 23

Open Door

Claire Evans: Broad Band: The Untold Story of Women Who Made the Internet

February 26

Claire Evans Changing Hands Bookstore, Phoenix 7 p.m. 

Enlightening Lunch with Darlene Cavalier

February 27

Enlightening Lunch with Darlene Cavalier 12 p.m.

Claire Evans talk 

February 27

Marsten Theater 5:30 p.m.

Emerge 

March 30

Read more