| In this Issue- STS Honors Information Session
- The Story of Your Game
- Knowledge infrastructures under siege: environmental data systems as memory, truce, and target
- More Than Just Giving Away Money: Jobs in Philanthropy
- World: Type Design in Global Perspective
- Michael Dickinson, CalTech, Using a modern fly to reconstruct the behaviors of an ancient world
- Extractivism Revisited. A Panel with Laurie Palmer and Orlando Bentancor
- What Did Silicon Valley Do to Democracy and the Media?
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| STS Honors Information Session
Are you interested in exploring your passions through research? Have you heard about the STS Honors Program?
We welcome you to the Honors Program Information Session where you can learn about: WHO is eligible
WHAT the Honors Program is about, and how it can further your career as an STS student
WHEN the best time is to apply, prepare, and undergo your own innovative research
WHERE this program fits into your individualized curriculum, and how it can strengthen your overall understanding of STS
WHY you should participate in this amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity
RSVP HERE
Learn more about the STS Honors Program. Wednesday, November 8th, 2017 | 6:30PM-7:30PM | 200-124
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| The Story of Your Game Sean Vanaman, The Story of Your Game. Regardless of what you design, build and ship, the explicit or experiential stories that emerge will be the thing that ultimately define the product. Sean will walk through how explicit story decisions play a role in the design process at Campo Santo and how you can design, prototype and iterate on narrative and mechanics to create compelling stories, fascinating worlds, memorable moments and impactful characters. This seminar series brings together a diverse set of experts to provide interdisciplinary perspectives on these media regarding their history, technologies, scholarly research, industry, artistic value and potential future. As the speakers and title suggest, the series also provides a topical lens for the diverse aspects of our lives. Read more.
Tuesday, November 7th, 2017 | 4:30PM-6:00PM | Jordan Hall, Room 41
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| Knowledge infrastructures under siege: environmental data systems as memory, truce, and target
Abstract: This talk examines the history of environmental data systems in the context of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental science. Tracking and understanding environmental change requires “long data,” i.e. consistent, reliable sampling over long periods of time. Weather observations can become climate data, for example — but only if carefully curated and adjusted to account for changes in instrumentation and data analysis methods. Environmental knowledge institutions therefore depend on an ongoing “truce” among scientific and political actors. Climate denialism and deregulatory movements seek to destabilize this truce. In recent months, with the installation of climate change deniers and non-scientist ideologues as leaders of American knowledge institutions, wholesale dismantling of some environmental data systems has begun. These developments threaten the continuity of “long data” vital to tracking climate change and other environmental disruptions with significant consequences for both domestic and international security. Read more.
Speaker bio: Paul N. Edwards is William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford University (from July 2017) and Professor of Information at the University of Michigan. He writes and teaches about the history, politics, and culture of information infrastructures. Edwards is the author of A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010) and The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (MIT Press, 1996), and co-editor of Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance (MIT Press, 2001), as well as numerous articles.
Thursday, November 9th, 2017 | 3:30PM-5:00PM | CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall
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| More Than Just Giving Away Money: Jobs in Philanthropy
Learn about how three San Francisco Bay Area foundations are addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time - and not simply by handing out money. Our panelists will talk about how they are directly identifying problems and finding solutions, share what inspired them to pursue careers in the field of philanthropy, and impart advice on navigating the social sector job search.
Thursday, November 9, 2017 | 3:30PM-5:00PM | Haas Center for Public Service, DK Room
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| World: Type Design in Global Perspective
Facing the World: Type Design in Global Perspective is a guided tour to more than five centuries of type design beyond the Latin alphabet. On display are rare books and manuscripts drawn from the Stanford Libraries collections, along with rare items on loan from participating institutions and private collections. From the earliest specimens of Greek movable type to an exquisite 16th-century polyglot Bible, and from Arabic lithography and a Hebrew typewriter to some of the earliest Chinese computer fonts, this exhibition speaks to the linguist, designer, technologist, and world traveler in us all. Read more.
Ongoing every day from November 9, 2017 through March 16, 2018 | Green Library Bing Wing
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| Michael Dickinson, CalTech, Using a modern fly to reconstruct the behaviors of an ancient world
Over 400 million years ago, a group of tiny six-legged creatures evolved the ability to fly – an event that fundamentally transformed life on our planet. Equipped with the ability to fly, insects underwent one of the most extraordinary radiations in the history of life and have dominated every terrestrial ecosystem since. Using a diverse assortment of modern techniques from diverse fields such as neuroscience, biomechanics, and engineering, My lab is attempting to reconstruct the behavior and ecology of the ancestral insects through his investigations of the common fruit fly. Through his work, the brain of a common fly provides a fascinating window into the past, providing new insight into the evolution of our planet’s most diverse group of organisms. Read more.
Friday, November 10, 2017 | 12:00PM-1:00PM | Hopkins Marine Station, Boat Works Lecture Hall
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| Extractivism Revisited. A Panel with Laurie Palmer and Orlando Bentancor
Professor Palmer’s talk, "Sedimental Advocacy" will explore some of the contradictions involved in advocating for the rights of nature in courts of law as a strategy to stem the tide of extractive practices, and address the specific and local situation of “advocating” for an underground shale formation in a legal battle in Monterey County. Professor Bentancor's talk "Wars Over Water: An Eco-Perspectival Approach" will discuss the struggle for political and environmental control of the Andean world and its relationship with the models with which water is conceived. These models, or modes of understanding the materiality of water are informed by ambivalent metaphors. By employing an eco-perspectival approach that shifts between ecological and economic symbolic formations, this talk will focus on the impasses that emerge out of the failure to master, dominate, and commodify water. Read more.
Monday, November 13, 2017 | 5:45PM | PIGOTT HALL (BLDG. 260), RM. 216
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| What Did Silicon Valley Do to Democracy and the Media?
This panel is part of the Technology and Human Values series at the Center for Ethics in Society and the Frankenstein @ 200 initiative at the Center for Biomedical Ethics. Franklin Foer's new book World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech will be available for purchase. The author will be signing copies after the panel. Read more.
FRANKLIN FOER is a national correspondent at the Atlantic, where he writes about politics and culture. For seven years, he edited the New Republic, widely regarded as the flagship magazine for American liberalism. NATE PERSILY is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science and Communication. He is a 2017-18 fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. LUCY BERNHOLZ (Moderator) is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab. Panelist Full Bios
Monday, November 13, 2017 | 7:00PM-8:30PM | Cubberly Auditorium
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| Building Trust in Autonomy: Research Experiences in Edinburgh
Major advances in both hardware and software has accelerated the development of autonomous systems that have the potential to bring significant benefits to society. Google, Tesla, and a host of other companies are building autonomous vehicles that can improve safety and provide flexible mobility options for those who cannot drive themselves. On the aviation side, the past few years have seen the proliferation of unmanned aircraft that have the potential to deliver medicine and monitor agricultural crops autonomously. In the financial domain, a significant portion of stock trades are performed using automated trading algorithms at a frequency not possible by human traders. How do we build these systems that drive our cars, fly our planes, and invest our money? How do we develop trust in these systems? What is the societal impact on increased levels of autonomy? This Bing Overseas Studies Seminar exposes students to the fundamental concepts of autonomy and immerses the students in a collection of cutting-edge research laboratories at the University of Edinburgh, a major leader in computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Read more.
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| UCLA
Ph.D. in Environment and Sustainability
Our Environment and Sustainability Ph.D. equips students with diverse perspectives to develop profound new ideas, knowledge and answers to the most important concerns facing people and the planet. The program provides a deep understanding of how fundamental principles of environmental science and sustainability can be applied to research and address key environmental challenges that require skills in multiple disciplines—preparing students for a range of careers in academia, as well as public and private sectors. Read more.
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| Student Assistant to Web Consulting Team
We are looking for an energetic and reliable Stanford student to assist on our website redesign projects. The student assistant will be initially responsible for content migration from old sites to new redesigned sites. As the student assistant grows their skills and becomes more comfortable with the tools and technology, the position can grow into an area of interest to the student that is also beneficial to the team - such as technical site building, writing for the web, analytics, or user testing. In general, the student assistant will be expected in the office at least once a week, but a more flexible schedule can be arranged during midterms, finals and breaks. Work can vary from 5 hours to a maximum of 15 hours per week. Read more.
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