ISS Faculty Fellow/Contentious Knowledge Team 2006-09
Stephen Hilgartner is an associate professor in the Department of Science & Technology Studies. His research has centered on the social dimensions and politics of contemporary and emerging science and technology. Much of his work has focused on struggles over the credibility of knowledge and over the authority of expertise. He has examined these themes in a number of situations in which scientific knowledge is implicated in contesting and maintaining social order, including studies of science advice, risk disputes, property formation, and public knowledge. Hilgartner's book Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama—which examines how the authority of scientific advisory bodies is produced, contested, and maintained—won the Carson Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science in 2002. Much of Hilgartner's work examines these questions in the areas of biology and medicine, especially in the area of genome research. He has also contributed to the literature on the construction of social problems. Hilgartner teaches a variety of courses that address the theme of contentious knowledge. These include Science in the American Polity; Knowledge, Technology, and Property; and The New Life Sciences: Emerging Technology, Emerging Politics.
See Stephen Hilgartner's departmental bio page.
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