By Christy Tidwell

At the beginning of this academic year, the Science, Technology, and Society program sent three faculty members (Erica Haugtvedt, Kayla Pritchard, and myself) and two STS students (Claire Linn and Parker Smith) to the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) conference in Seattle. (Thank you to the Raising for Rockers donors whose generosity made it possible for the students to attend!)

Faculty members took part in the conference as well as attending panels and learning about the work done by other STS scholars from around the world. This was the first academic conference the students had attended, so they got to learn about STS as a field but also about how conferences work. 4S is a large conference, so it provided a wide range of opportunities for all of us to explore, and both faculty and student experiences helped illustrate key elements of STS as a field.