Karen Hoffman

Courses: Science, Politics, and Environmental Problems, Social Studies of Environmental Advocacy

B.A., M.A., University of California, Berkeley; Ph.D., University of California, Santa Cruz. Special interests in social and cultural studies of environmental advocacy and policy making, the politics of science in environmental regulation, the historical and social production of expertise, the relationship between environmental problems and social inequalities and injustices, and the conditions of and possibilities for democratic participation. At work on a book titled Inheriting the Wind: Science and Democracy in U.S. Pollution Politics. Recipient of dissertation research fellowship from the University of California Toxic Substances Research and Training Program; and the S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship in Natural Resource Studies, University of California, Berkeley. SLC, 2007-

Tania Munz

B.A., University of Chicago. M.A., University of Minnesota. Ph.D. candidate, Princeton University. Completing a dissertation entitled “Of Birds and Bees: Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, and the Science of Animals.” Special interests in the history of biology, animal behavior studies, and science and film. Publications on the honey bee dance language controversy in the Journal of the History of Biology and von Frisch and Lorenz’s uses of scientific film in Montage A/V. Has taught at Princeton University, University of Minnesota, and Ecole d’Humanité (Switzerland). Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values; recipient of a National Science Foundation Dissertation grant, and the Marjorie Grene Graduate Student Essay Prize; guest producer on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation: Science Friday.” SLC, 2007-

Erik Parens

Courses: Surgically and Pharmacologically Shaping Selves, On the Prospect of a ”Posthuman Future“

B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago. Special interest in the ethical and social issues that emerge with advances in science and technology. As senior research scholar at the Hastings Center (a bioethics research institute), received major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Institutes of Health to lead projects that have resulted in many publications, including four edited volumes: Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications (Georgetown University Press, 1998); Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Georgetown University Press, 2000); Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005); and Surgically Shaping Children: Technology, Ethics, and the Pursuit of Normality(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). Served in a variety of capacities on national advisory boards, including writing a background paper on the ethics of embryonic stem cell research for Bill Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission. SLC, 2006-

John C. Powers

B.S., Purdue University. M.A., Ph.D., Indiana University. Special interests in the history of science and medicine, especially seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chemistry, history of science pedagogy, and sociology of science. Contributor to Ambix, Isis, and Early Science and Medicine. National Science Foundation Scholar’s Award, 2004-2005. SLC, 2004-