Sixth year HASTS PhD candidate Zachary La Rock and recent alumna Elena Sobrino PhD ’23 traveled to Philadelphia, PA to present at the University of Pennsylvania’s biennial EnviroLab conference. Taking place between 10 and 11 April, the theme of this year’s convening was “(Un)Doing Catastrophe.” The event drew more than fifty graduate student and early career scholars from across the United States and Canada.
Elena, who is currently a lecturer at the Tufts University STS Program, presented a paper entitled “Fatigue and the Politics of Closure: Testing the Limits of Modernist Crisis Management in the Flint Water Crisis.” Zachary, meanwhile, presented a shortened version of his most recent dissertation chapter, entitled “Curative Malaise: Science, Magic, and Unsettlement in an Agricultural Epidemic.”
In addition to the conference panels and a lively screening of short films, Zachary, Elena, and sixth year HASTS PhD candidate Rustam Khan enjoyed a reunion with eighth year PhD candidate Taylor Bailey, who serves as curatorial fellow at Philadelphia’s Science History Institute as he concludes his dissertation research.
HASTS alumna Michelle Spektor PhD ’23 has been named a 2026 Fellow by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Currently a postdoctoral associate at MIT’s Schwarzman College of Computing, Spektor will use the fellowship to make progress on a project entitled “Making Biometric Citizens: State Power and National Belonging from the British Empire to the Digital Age.” This work builds from her HASTS doctoral research.
The ACLS, which marks its centennial of academic grantmaking in 2026, will award more than 5.3 million dollars in funding to the 63 members of this year’s cohort. Their proposals were selected from a pool of 2,000 applications following lengthy review by leading scholars in their respective fields.
Congratulations, Michelle, on this achievement!
Fourth year HASTS PhD candidate Turner Adornetto and recent program graduate Boyd Ruamcharoen PhD ’25 jointly convened a panel and presented papers at the 2026 meeting of the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH). The conference took place in Kansas City, MO between March 25 and 28.
Turner’s and Boyd’s panel was entitled “Technological Environmentalisms: Histories of Environmentalist Technologies and Infrastructures.” In addition to their own presentations on alternative energy infrastructures and biodegradable materials, respectively, the panel featured work by Genevieve Kane of Boston University. Sarah Mittlefehldt, of Northern Michigan University, served as the panel’s chair and discussant.
Boyd Ruamcharoen PhD ’25 received an honorable mention for the 2026 Edward M Coffman First Manuscript Prize, an award from the Society for Military History for best dissertation in that field. The Society notes that the Coffman Prize recognizes “scholars whose work blends military history with social, political, economic and diplomatic history and authors of studies centering on campaigns, leaders, technology, and doctrine.”
Ruamcharoen presented his HASTS dissertation, entitled “Deteriorating Relations: Weatherable Materials, Tropical Decay, and American Power, 1942-1970s,” in summer 2025. He currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard.
Congratulations, Boyd!
Boyd Ruamcharoen PhD ’25 has been awarded the Society for the History of Technology’s (SHOT) Bernard S Finn IEEE History Prize. Given annually to the best paper in the history of electrotechnology, the prize recognizes Ruamcharoen’s article “Tropicalizing the Portable Radio: Electronics and the US Military’s Battle against Fungi in the Pacific War.” The article appeared in the April 2024 issue of Technology and Culture.
Ruamcharoen is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. The HASTS community congratulates him on this wonderful achievement.
On January 25, 2026, the Board of Trustees of Columbia University announced that it has designated HASTS alumna Jennifer L Mnookin PhD ’99 as the University’s 21st president.
Mnookin, who presently serves as Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin – Madison, is a scholar of technology and the law. She was previously Dean of the School of Law and Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. During her graduate studies at MIT, Mnookin wrote a dissertation entitled “Images of Truth: Evidence, Expertise and Technologies of Knowledge in the American Courtroom” under the tutelage of Mellon Professor of Humanities Emeritus Michael M.J. Fischer.
Mnookin will begin her appointment as Columbia’s next leader on July 1. The HASTS community extends her the warmest congratulations as she prepares to assume the new post.
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.