Professor in the Department of Science, Technology & Society
University of Virginia
The convergence of nano, bio, info and cognitive technologies will require collaboration across disciplines. In order to make certain this convergence represents social as well as scientific and technological progress, these collaborations will have to include stakeholders both within and outside of science and engineering. The metaphor of a trading zone suggests how these diverse backgrounds and interests can be convinced to work together. Interactional experts who can cross disciplinary and cultural boundaries will play an important role in facilitating these trading zones. This presentation will include material from a recent, NSF-sponsored workshop on this topic. Examples will be drawn from nanotechnology, service science and Earth Systems Engineering and Management.
ABOUT MICHAEL GORMAN:
Michael E. Gorman is a Professor
in the Department of Science, Technology & Society
at the University of Virginia, where he teaches courses on ethics, invention,
discovery and communication. His research interests include experimental
simulations of science, described in his book Simulating Science (Indiana
University Press, 1992) and ethics, invention and discovery, described
in his book Transforming Nature (Kluwer Academic Press, 1998). With support
from the National Science Foundation, he has created a graduate concentration
in Systems Engineering in which students create case-studies involving
ethical and policy issues; these studies are described in Gorman, M.E.,
M.M. Mehalik, and P.H. Werhane, Ethical and environmental challenges
to engineering (2000, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall). He has also
edited a volume on Scientific and Technological Thinking (Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 2005). He taught the first course on Earth Systems Engineering
and Management. His current research is in the kind of interdisciplinary
trading zones that will be needed to achieve true technological progress.