Wednesday, December 16, 2009

AAAS Benefits from AAAS Annual Meeting, February 18-22

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the journal Science, holds its 2010 Annual Meeting in San Diego, 18-22 February. You can advance your organization's mission and goals in many other ways through this event.

Judges for the Student Poster Competition
We are seeking scientists, engineers, and other professionals to serve as judges for the Student Poster Competition. Poster judges receive a deeply discounted meeting registration rate and have the opportunity to meet colleagues from across the nation and around the world. Moreover, they can help mentor the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Student Session Aides
Undergraduate and graduate students can volunteer to ensure the meeting runs smoothly. Those who volunteer for 8 hours receive free meeting registration; those who volunteer for 16 hours also receive a one-year subscription to ScienceOnline. Whenever possible, aides are assigned to support sessions of particular interest to them. They have the opportunity to assist, listen to, and meet a range of interesting people, including leading scientists, Nobel Laureates, popular authors, government leaders, and media personalities.

Family Science Days
This community science showcase -- featuring hands-on demonstrations and other family and kid-friendly activities -- will occur on Saturday and Sunday at the San Diego Convention Center. It features a broad range of formal and informal science educators who promote an interest in science among the general public.
For more information, contact Tiffany Lohwater, (202) 326-8737

Career-Building Workshops
Career-related workshops are offered for free and designed for students and professionals at all educational and career levels. For example, Learn how to get published in Science.

Free Activities Open to All
A major goal of AAAS is to connect with a broad range of local communities. These activities are free to all attendees and open to the public: plenary and topical lectures, opening ceremony, career development workshops, Family Science Days, and International Exhibit Hall.

Learn more about the 2010 Meeting

If you have any questions, please contact Jill C. Perla at (202) 326-6736.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Call for Papers: 6th Annual HAPSAT Conference

Call for Papers: 6th Annual HAPSAT Conference
Instruments: Mental and Material

On Sunday April 25, HAPSAT, the Graduate Student Society at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science at Technology at the University of Toronto, will host its sixth annual conference, Instruments: Mental and Material.

Scientific instruments have emerged as a central theme in the history and philosophy of science and in science and technology studies. In Leviathan and the Air Pump, Shapin and Schaffer cite instruments, together with writing style and modest witnessing, as the technologies that enable the new scientific life. More recently, Galison’s Image and Logic gives instrument makers equal standing with theorists and experimentalists within the trading zones of scientific discovery. The historiography of medicine has also explored how instruments played a significant role in changing the diagnostic acumen of doctors and revolutionizing concepts of disease. However, there is still a great deal of work to be done in order to consider instruments as both a serious subject of study, and a resource for historical investigation and argumentation. Similarly, since Hacking’s seminal Representing and Intervening, philosophers of science have acknowledged instruments as being of central importance to the practice of science. They have become a nexus for worries about empiricism and standards of evidence; Latour (Science in Action) for instance, has argued that facts and artifacts are constructed in the same way, while Davis Baird (Thing Knowledge) argues that instruments contain knowledge of how to produce effects.

The keynote address will be given by Jacalyn Duffin (Queen’s University): “Stethoscope: Technology and the Meaning of Life”

We welcome papers addressing, but not limited to, the following questions:

How do we learn from instruments? What roles do scientific instruments play in scientific investigations of nature?

What is the relationship between science and instrumentation?

To what extent have medical instruments transformed the patient-practitioner relationship?

Can abstract entities like scientific models or mathematical equations be considered instruments? Is there anything to be gained by doing so?

How have social, cultural, and economic contexts shaped decisions about instruments?

How can we, as historians, learn from instruments? Can our textual field learn to effectively marshal material evidence?

How can we trust scientific instruments?

What kind of evidence do we get from scientific instruments?

We invite graduate students and recent graduates working in fields such as HPS, STS, history, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, gender studies, and law, to submit paper and panel proposals that critically engage with this theme. For papers please email abstracts of up to 250 words to HAPSAT@gmail.com by March 19, 2010 and for panels please email a document with a 250 word abstract describing the panel as a whole in addition to individual abstracts for each paper (also 250 words). Each presenter will be given 20 minutes.

We hope to be able to offer billeting and small travel subsidies for graduate students traveling to Toronto for the conference.

More details and our past programs

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) Student Competition

To enable humanities and social science graduate students to conduct preliminary research and prepare dissertation research and funding proposals, the Social Science Research Council offers Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowships. Fellows participate in two proposal preparation workshops and receive up to $5,000 in support of research during the summer of 2010.

The fellowship competition is open to all second and third-year graduate students in any discipline of the social sciences and humanities who are currently enrolled full time in a PhD program at an accredited university in the United States and whose research projects and dissertation proposals fit within one of the six research fields listed below.

Students awarded fellowships must participate in two four-day workshops led by leading scholars of different disciplinary perspectives in each of the fields. Workshop dates are June 3-6, 2010 in San Diego, CA and September 16-19, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA. The fellowship covers all
necessary costs of travel, meals, and lodging for the workshops.

2010 Research Fields:

After Secularization: New Approaches to Religion and Modernity
Vincent P. Pecora (University of Utah, English)
Jonathan Sheehan (University of California - Berkeley, History)

Discrimination Studies
Samuel R. Lucas (University of California - Berkeley, Sociology)
Lisa G. Materson (University of California - Davis, History)

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Contentious Politics
Doug McAdam (Stanford University, Sociology)
Sidney Tarrow (Cornell University, Government)

Multiculturalism, Immigration, and Identity in Western Europe and the United States
Nancy Foner (City University of New York Graduate Center, Sociology)
Christophe Bertossi (Institut français des relations internationales, Political Science)

Spaces of Inquiry
Stuart W. Leslie (The Johns Hopkins University, History of Science and Technology)
Carla Yanni (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Art History)

Virtual Worlds
Tom Boellstorff (University of California - Irvine, Anthropology)
Douglas Thomas (University of Southern California, Communication)


For full descriptions of the research fields, eligibility and application requirements, and the DPDF program, along with links to the SSRC Online Application Portal, visit our Web site

Monday, December 7, 2009

Sustainability Science Opportunities for Ph.D. students, postdocs, and faculty

With an initial focus on the ecological, social, and economic dimensions of landscape change, the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) seeks to enhance understanding of coupled social-ecological systems and connections between knowledge and action that result in improved solutions to sustainability-related challenges in and beyond Maine. SSI emerged from our belief that the solution to sustainability problems requires unprecedented levels of program integration characterized by a deep commitment to interdisciplinary teamwork, robust university-stakeholder partnerships and an innovative institutional culture.

Link to the SSI website

Link to information about predoctoral fellowship opportunities

Link to information about postdoctoral research opportunities

Link to information about our two faculty searches

(information about a third search will be posted soon)

UCSD Part Time Job Opportunity - SAT Math/Writing (Grammar) Prep Instructors

A new course developed by UCSD extension needs an SAT Math and Writing
(grammar) Prep instructors.

Course will be offered on campus 6 times a year starting this Spring (or
summer).

Pay will range from $35-75 per hour long class and you will be paid tax
free as an independent contractor.

A minimum of two years previous SAT prep experience mandatory. You must
have worked with Kaplan, Princeton Review, Elite, Ivy West, or another
large test prep company previously and be able to provide references.

This is a wonderful opportunity for someone to work a few hours a week and
make quite a bit of extra money. Need to be a dynamic and engaging
instructor with plenty of classroom experience. Need to be able to commit
to at least one year of work.

If interested please send an email with the following to jshapiro@ucsd.edu:

--Short statement of previous SAT Math or Writing (grammar) prep experience
--Resume
--Teaching Statement