Can science make sense of life?

This is the first time the Medical Faculty has the opportunity to welcome a Holberg prize winner, so use this opportunity to gain new insights on your research!

The Holberg Prize is awarded annually to scholars who have made outstanding contributions to research in the humanities, social sciences, law or theology, and the objective of the prize is to increase awareness of the value of academic scholarship from these fields. Science and Technology Studies (STS) pioneer Sheila Jasanoff received the prize for her groundbreaking research in the field. 

In this CCBIO Special Seminar, you will meet Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard University) on stage in conversation with Stephen Hilgartner (Cornell University). Jasanoff and Hilgartner are internationally leading scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and have done extensive research on the social dimensions and politics of biomedicine and biotechnology (among other fields). What is STS and what insights does it have to offer to medical and health researchers and practitioners? And, to allude to the title of Prof. Jasanoff's latest book, what is the answer to the question "Can Science Make Sense of Life?"

When: Friday June 10, 2022 at 09.30-10.15

Refreshments: Coffee/tea before the seminar and light food afterwards.

Where: Store Auditorium, hospital main building (sentralblokken), Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen. No registration necessary.

Host: Professor Roger Strand

Speakers:

Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School

Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. A pioneer in her field, she has authored more than 130 articles and chapters and is author or editor of more than 15 books, including The Fifth Branch, Science at the Bar, Designs on Nature, The Ethics of Invention, and Can Science Make Sense of Life? Her work explores the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies. She founded and directs the STS Program at Harvard; previously, she was founding chair of the STS Department at Cornell. She has held distinguished visiting appointments at leading universities in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US. Jasanoff served on the AAAS Board of Directors and as President of the Society for Social Studies of Science. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her honors include the SSRC’s Hirschman prize, the Humboldt Foundation’s Reimar-Lüst award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ehrenkreuz from the Government of Austria, and foreign memberships in the British Academy and the Royal Danish Academy. She holds AB, JD, and PhD degrees from Harvard, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Twente and Liège.

Stephen Hilgartner, professor at the Department of Science & Technology Studies (S&TS) at Cornell University

Stephen Hilgartner studies the social dimensions and politics of contemporary and emerging science and technology, especially in the life sciences. His research focuses on situations in which scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order -- a theme he has examined in studies of expertise, property formation, risk disputes, and biotechnology. His most recent book, Reordering Life: Knowledge and Control in the Genomics Revolution (MIT Press, 2017), examines how new knowledge and new regimes of control took shape during the Human Genome Project. Hilgartner’s book on science advice—Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama—won the Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science. He is also a co-editor of two recent books: Science & Democracy: Making Knowledge and Making Power in the Biosciences and Beyond (Routledge, 2015) and Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society (Routledge, 2018). Hilgartner is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science