22 November 2024 — 12:00 noon — GAR 4.100

Cécile Stehrenberger (Univ. of Wuppertal)

“Doing Science in the Eye of the Storm: Social Science Disaster Research, 1949-1994”

During the Cold War, several US social science “disaster research groups” conducted hundreds of fields studies after floods, earthquakes, and factory explosions. My presentation explores their research goals, their scientific practices, and their findings, analyzing transformations and continuities in the knowledge production process. I will elaborate on how the “anchoring practice” of disaster research, the conduct of rapid response fields studies in post-disaster zones, was connected to a specific understanding of disasters as concentrated events and as natural “laboratories” for developing general theories of human behavior. Moreover, I will show how disaster research was based on practices of othering, and demonstrate how a combination of socio-structural and cultural factors prevented disaster research, during the period I study, from becoming “critical” disaster studies.

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Cécile Stephanie Stehrenberger is an assistant professor for Historical Comparative Studies of Science and Technology at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. After receiving her PhD from the University of Zurich, she has taught at the Universities of Braunschweig and Erfurt, and was a visiting scholar at the IAS in Princeton, the CSDS in Delhi, and the CALAS Center for Advanced Latin American Studies in Guadalajara, Mexico. Her research focuses on the history of disaster science, the entangled history of toxic waste, as well as on the memory of slow disasters.

15 November 2025 — 12:00 noon — GAR 1.102 [note room change]

Brooke Johnson (Rice Univ.)

“General Chemistry for Who? Exploring the Intersection of Chemistry and Black History”

General chemistry, the foundational course for STEM majors, is notoriously seen as a gatekeeper. This notion is especially prevalent among students from communities that have been historically excluded from the modern scientific enterprise though nonetheless a part of its origins. How might transcending traditionally disparate disciplines help us re-imagine alternative and more inclusive introductions to chemistry and STEM?  AfroChemistry (the study of Black-life matter) is an introductory, interdisciplinary science course in which students acquire intro-level understandings of chemical concepts while exploring how those concepts intersect with important questions in Black studies and illuminate issues of racial justice in the US (such as health disparities and environmental crises). This lecture will focus on the role of pedagogy at the intersection of chemistry and Black history in helping to address inequities in chemical education, with particular attention on how the contextualization of modern science and the centering of the tradition of pioneering Black chemists can inspire diverse students. In view of demographic disparities observed in the academic fields of chemistry and chemical education in the US, this talk aims to illustrate how creative and multi-disciplinary courses can be an important tool for inspiring retention, diversity and excellence in science and in the academy more broadly.
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Brooke Johnson is a Preceptor in Chemistry at Rice University. She joined Rice’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion after earning her PhD in Chemistry from Princeton in 2023.