From November 19th to November 23, HASTS anthropologists traveled to New Orleans, LA for the American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) annual meeting. The theme of this year’s conference— Ghosts— encouraged the assembled scholars “to examine the ways that the past haunts the present, and that the material becomes tangible to inflect the everyday.”
PhD candidates Raha Peyravi and Zachary La Rock presented papers at the conference’s flash sessions and moderated panels. Peyravi presented a paper entitled “Real-Time Work: Temporal Care and Control in Public Transit in the City of Chicago” in a flash session on November 21st. Later that day, La Rock presented a paper entitled “Crises of Cure: Ernesto De Martino and the Environmental History of South Italy” on a panel that commemorated and revisited the scholarship of 20th century Italian anthropologist Ernesto De Martino.
Students in attendance appreciated the opportunity to connect with faculty in the MIT Anthropology and STS Programs and the many HASTS alumni who also presented in New Orleans.
Via the podcast Soonish, technology journalist Wade Roush PhD ’94 has released an interview with David Mindell PhD ’96, Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.
In a conversation that took cues from overlapping areas of interest in science, technology, and society (STS), the pair discussed Mindell’s recent book, The New Lunar Society: An Enlightenment Guide to the Next Industrial Revolution. The book was published in February 2025 by MIT Press.
From September 3-6, 2025, members of the HASTS community gathered at the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. Founded in 1975, 4S is the largest professional association of STS scholars in the world.
Current doctoral students Ambar Reyes, Diego Cerna-Aragon, and Zachary La Rock presented papers on moderated panels.
HASTS alum Candis Callison PhD ’10, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous journalism, media, and public discourse at the University of British Columbia, served as this year’s presidential plenary speaker in an event titled “Intersections of Indigenous Studies and STS.” Departing from past formats, the plenary unfolded as a conversation between Callison and Dian Million, a Tanana Athabascan critical theorist and associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Washington-Seattle. The duo spoke to an overflow crowd at the Seattle Convention Center on Wednesday, September 3.
Anne Pollock PhD ’07, meanwhile, oversaw the meeting as current 4S president. Other program alums who presented work included Rijul Kochhar PhD ’22, Burcu Mutlu PhD ’19, Shreeharsh Kelkar PhD ’16, Emily Wanderer PhD ’14, Chihyung Jeon PhD ’10, Anita Chan PhD ’08, Wen-Hua Kuo PhD ’05 (4S president-elect), and Hannah Landecker PhD ’00. On the evening of Friday, September 5, many current and former members of the community joined together for a lively social hosted by MIT Associate Professor of STS Oliver Rollins.