The focus of my research is on how democracy can help us better achieve the kinds of technological societies that we want, if we let it. At the moment, I am exploring several different avenues, including public interest technology and nuclear waste storage.
My research between 2022 and 2025 centered on the politics of biodiversity. Worries about an extinction crisis are poised to throw conservation biology into the center of our political divides and culture wars. In my latest book, I argue that we can avoid making the same mistakes that were made in climate politics, but only if we take serious the questions of 1) Where is the proper role of science in a democracy and 2) Where can and should people fit into visions of a wilder world? In order to realize biodiversity democracy, we'll have to accept that we'll only be able to realize discordant harmonies when it comes conservation politics, and that we'll all have to be a lot more open to compromise, concession, and experimentation.
I was sent down this path as I wrestled more and more with the question regarding the role that knowledge and truth should play in a democratic society. Worries about the arrival of a post-truth society to me seem both ahistorical and overblown. They also misunderstand the whole point of democracy. My second book, The Divide, tackles the challenges, trade offs, and seeming paradoxes inherent in realizing a democracy that is not only intelligent, but also fosters trust among citizens and for experts.
My dissertation research was focused on the role that technological change plays in human social relationships and the organization of community. A healthy skepticism of networked individualism, technological liberalism, and the rhetoric of choice as well as an interest in concepts like engagement and the good life drives my thinking. This research culminated in my first book, Technically Together. It focused on the question of how societies could more reliably realize artifacts, infrastructures, organizations, and built environments that are communally ergonomic - that is, technologies that encourage local community engagement as an integral part of everyday life.
I have been a contributor to The New Atlantis, with articles on COVID-19, scientism in politics, nuclear energy, and online shaming. I have penned opinions pieces for The Washington Post, Zocalo Public Square, and ISSUES in Science and Technology. And I have recently started a Substack with two friends, called Taming Complexity. My academic articles have appeared in journals such as AI & Society, Technology in Society, Social Epistemology, Philosophy & Technology, the Journal of Responsible Innovation, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, and the Journal of Urbanism.
Prior to becoming a professor of social science at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, I earned a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from RPI - which came after a bachelors and masters in mathematics from New Mexico Tech. My life before academia included stints crunching large data-sets for a multinational chemical company and teaching mathematics courses on a reservation in North-Central Montana. I also play rugby (when not rehabbing an injury).
Research Areas: communitarian technologies; urban design; the good life; the politics of technology; the barriers to more democratic technological societies; water-energy-food nexus; epistemological luddism; responsible innovation; intelligent trial and error; political scientism; democratic pluralism
Taming Complexity
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My research between 2022 and 2025 centered on the politics of biodiversity. Worries about an extinction crisis are poised to throw conservation biology into the center of our political divides and culture wars. In my latest book, I argue that we can avoid making the same mistakes that were made in climate politics, but only if we take serious the questions of 1) Where is the proper role of science in a democracy and 2) Where can and should people fit into visions of a wilder world? In order to realize biodiversity democracy, we'll have to accept that we'll only be able to realize discordant harmonies when it comes conservation politics, and that we'll all have to be a lot more open to compromise, concession, and experimentation.
I was sent down this path as I wrestled more and more with the question regarding the role that knowledge and truth should play in a democratic society. Worries about the arrival of a post-truth society to me seem both ahistorical and overblown. They also misunderstand the whole point of democracy. My second book, The Divide, tackles the challenges, trade offs, and seeming paradoxes inherent in realizing a democracy that is not only intelligent, but also fosters trust among citizens and for experts.
My dissertation research was focused on the role that technological change plays in human social relationships and the organization of community. A healthy skepticism of networked individualism, technological liberalism, and the rhetoric of choice as well as an interest in concepts like engagement and the good life drives my thinking. This research culminated in my first book, Technically Together. It focused on the question of how societies could more reliably realize artifacts, infrastructures, organizations, and built environments that are communally ergonomic - that is, technologies that encourage local community engagement as an integral part of everyday life.
I have been a contributor to The New Atlantis, with articles on COVID-19, scientism in politics, nuclear energy, and online shaming. I have penned opinions pieces for The Washington Post, Zocalo Public Square, and ISSUES in Science and Technology. And I have recently started a Substack with two friends, called Taming Complexity. My academic articles have appeared in journals such as AI & Society, Technology in Society, Social Epistemology, Philosophy & Technology, the Journal of Responsible Innovation, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, and the Journal of Urbanism.
Prior to becoming a professor of social science at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, I earned a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from RPI - which came after a bachelors and masters in mathematics from New Mexico Tech. My life before academia included stints crunching large data-sets for a multinational chemical company and teaching mathematics courses on a reservation in North-Central Montana. I also play rugby (when not rehabbing an injury).
Research Areas: communitarian technologies; urban design; the good life; the politics of technology; the barriers to more democratic technological societies; water-energy-food nexus; epistemological luddism; responsible innovation; intelligent trial and error; political scientism; democratic pluralism
Taming Complexity
LinkedIn Profile
Academia.edu Profile