Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies

Category: News

  • Another co-curricular opportunity ~ with our own Dr. Glennan, Jan. 28th

    Brown Bag Series – “The New Mechanical Philosophy” by Stuart Glennan

    The Butler Brown Bag Series for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work presents “The New Mechanical Philosophy” by Stuart Glennan, Philosophy and Religion, on Tuesday, January 28, noon-1:00 p.m. in AU111 (UClub).

    Natural and social scientists often characterize their work as a search for the mechanisms responsible for the phenomena they study. While this way of thinking about the nature of science has its origins in 17th century philosophy, contemporary philosophers of science have only recently begun to think about mechanisms. The result has been an explosion of work on the nature of mechanisms, and their relation to causation, explanation, modeling, and discovery that has come to be known as the New Mechanical Philosophy.

    Please join us for a discussion with Stuart Glennan on his sabbatical research for his book on this emerging area in the philosophy of science.

    Students, staff, and faculty are all welcome. No RSVP required. Light refreshments will be provided – please feel free to bring your lunch.

  • 1st co-curricular opportunity of 2014 ~ Daniel Levitin, cognitive psychologist, January 28, 7:30

    Butler University’s J. James Woods Lectures in the Sciences and Mathematics presents cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 in the Howard L. Schrott Center for the Arts.

    Levitin, the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at McGill University, is the author of the book This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (Dutton/Penguin, 2006), which stayed on The New York Times and The (Toronto) Globe and Mail bestseller lists for more than 16 months. Two award-winning documentaries based on “This Is Your Brain On Music” have been broadcast internationally: The Music Instinct co-starred Levitin and Bobby McFerrin, and The Musical Brain co-starred Levitin and Sting.

    As a musician (tenor saxophone, guitar, and bass), he has performed with Mel Tormé, Nancy Wilson, David Byrne, Roseanne Cash, Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Rodney Crowell, Victor Wooten, Blue Öyster Cult, members of the Steve Miller Band, and Santana.

    Levitin earned his doctorate in cognitive psychology from the University of Oregon. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, where he taught courses in the psychology, computer science, human biology, music, and anthropology departments, and the School of Education. He has also been a visiting professor in psychology at UC Berkeley and Dartmouth.

  • STS Party (NOT a meeting!) ~ Friday, January 17th, 6-10 pm, Efroymson Center

    Join us for an STS party.

    This is not a meeting; just a time to enjoy friends, food, and music.

    When: Friday, January 17, 2013, 6:00-10:00 pm

    Where: The Efroymson Center for Creative Writing (across from BUDP and Ross Hall)

    WHO: STS majors, minors, or anyone who is interested:)

    There will be a live band, free dinner (Yats), and a photo booth.

    RSVP to Mary Proffitt, mproffit@butler.edu, by Thursday, January 16th at noon!

  • Seasons Greetings and welcome to our new STS director

    Dear friends of STS —

    With the close of this semester I will be ending my short stint as interim director.  I will be replaced by the new permanent director, Dr. Carmen Salsbury.  Dr. Salsbury, who for the past six years has served as chair of the department of biological sciences, brings a lot of energy, a focus on student learning, a wealth of administrative experience, and a passion for studying the behavior of squirrels (In her honor that’s a sciurus carolinensis in the Santa hat).

    Dr. Salsbury will take over January 2, but she and I will be working together over the coming months on the transition and on the search for the new full-time STS instructor.  That search is, by the way, going well.  We have received many quality applications, and expect to be bringing finalists to campus in February or March.

    I have enjoyed working with so many of you over the last semester, and I look forward to continuing to work with STS as an instructor, advisor and a member of the steering committee.  Have a good holiday, and make sure to come to our STS party on Friday January 17 so the we can welcome our new director.

    Stuart Glennan

     

  • Announcing our affiliate faculty!

    Who are the STS faculty?  Since STS is a program that draws on the expertise of faculty across the university, this can be a bit hard to figure out — until now.  Starting this semester we are beginning to officially designate faculty whose research, teaching and service supports STS as affiliate faculty.  These are the faculty members who will teach most of your classes, be your advisors, supervise your internships, and show up at STS events.  Most of these faculty members have been helping STS for years, but now we want to acknowledge them, and make them more identifiable to our students.  You can check out our list on the STS website:

    http://www.butler.edu/science-technology/faculty-and-staff/

    And if you’ve had a professor teach an STS class and they aren’t on this list, they probably forgot their application.  You can remind them 🙂

     

  • STS Connect – New STS Club – call out lunch

    Exciting News! – STS is starting a club! 

    Hey Everyone, 

    Currently we are underway in establishing our first STS club here at Butler University. It will be called, “STS Connect.” This is really exciting because STS is becoming a well-known major at Butler. Because it is a growing major, more and more people are beginning to wonder what exactly it is and being a part of STS Connect, will be a great way to educate, promote, and encourage more students in the growing field. Having this club established will allow us to network and connect with potential internships and with current and past STS majors. Students will also be given the opportunity to interact with the community through community service projects not only in the Butler community, but in Indianapolis as well. We are really excited to get this started and hope that you are too!

    Our first call out meeting is This Friday December 6, 2013 in Jordan 238 at 12 p.m. Pizza will be provided. We encourage everyone and anyone who is interested, even if a little, to come and join this historical moment (it’ll be really FUN).  Please RSVP to Mary Proffitt (mproffit@butler.edu) so she knows how much pizza to order.

     

    We hope to see you all there! 

    Allie Deno ’16

    Mimi Fisher ‘16

    Brandon Katz ’16

    Jim Santos ‘16

  • STS to add a new faculty member next Fall

    unknownWe are very pleased to announce that we will, for the first time, be hiring a full-time faculty member with a primary appointment in Science, Technology and Society.  A full-time faculty member will allow us to increase the regularity and variety of course offerings.

    The search for a new person is already underway.  We expect to bring candidates to campus in the spring, with our new hire teaching next fall.

    Thanks to all of our students, whose commitment to the STS program has made this possible! We will be asking you to participate in our search in the spring.

  • Two co-curricular events : Woods Lecture, Nina Tandon on, “Body 3.0” and Butler Brown Bag with Alexandre Erkine on “DNA @ 60”

    Woods Lecture Series Presents Nina Tandon

    On September 24, 2013

    Tissue engineer Nina Tandon will open the 2013-2014 J. James Woods Lectures in the Sciences and Mathematics with a talk called “Body 3.0″ at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24 in the Atherton Union Reilly Room.

    All lectures in the series are free and open to the public without tickets. For more information, call (317) 940-9269 .

    Tandon believes that the era of engineered tissues—like, for example, a replacement kidney grown in the lab—is just beginning. In this talk, Tandon shows us how we (and our bodies) have lived through most of history (Body 1.0), and then how we evolved into “cyborgs” with implants (such as pacemakers and artificial joints, Body 2.0).

    Now, Body 3.0 is all about growing our OWN body parts. For her doctoral thesis, Tandon grew cardiac cells that beat like tiny hearts. In this thrilling and eye-opening talk, she explains the process of growing tissue and transplants, and the future of medical science. With the help of manufacturing and information technology, we are on the verge of being able to grow human tissue—and Tandon is here to walk us through this unbelievably exciting era.

    After receiving a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Cooper Union, Tandon spent her early career in telecom (Avaya Labs) and transitioned into biomedical engineering via her Fulbright scholarship in Italy, where she worked on an electronic nose used to “smell” lung cancer. Tandon studied electrical stimulation for cardiac tissue engineering at MIT and Columbia, and now continues her research on electrical stimulation for broader tissue-engineering applications.

    Butler Brown Bag Series for Research, Scholarship and Creative Work presents:

    “DNA @ 60: What is in Store for You is Mind-Blowing” by Alex Erkine, Pharmaceutical Sciences on Tuesday, September 24, noon-1 p.m., UClub (AU111).

    After 60 years of the discovery of the DNA structure, it is now possible to read the entire content of your own DNA for just $5000 in a few weeks. In a year or two, the price is predicted to drop to $1000 and will be routinely done – similar to a blood test, with data stored on a computer. Since this information holds the keys to potential life-threatening medical conditions, as well as to your personal traits (psychological character, mental abilities, ethnic origins, etc.), the question is: do you want to gain this information about yourself, your relatives, or your future spouse? Do you think the insurance companies, your roommate, or the NSA will want it? And if they do get it, what do you think they will do with it?

    Join us for a lunchtime conversation on this topic with Alex Erkine, Pharmaceutical Sciences.

    Students, staff and faculty are all welcome. No RSVP required. Light refreshments will be provided – feel free to bring your lunch.

  • Welcome to the STS Blog

    Hello students, faculty and friends of STS.  Welcome to our new Blog!  The STS program committee will be using this Blog to keep you posted on a variety of issues, for instance:

    • Upcoming events
    • Advising Issues
    • Internships
    • STS classes for the upcoming semesters
    • Alumni and other news

    Going forward we will be using Blog posts in place of listserv messages, so it important that you subscribe to the Blog to be notified of new postings.  Please sign up using the link on this page!