Three UW-Madison Ph.D. students have been awarded summer scholarships by the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. This year’s recipients include June Jeon (Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology), Yidong (Steven) Wang (Journalism and Mass Communication) and Chris Wirz (Life Sciences Communication). The awards range between $2,500- $4,000 to support each research project. Each spring the Holtz Center invites applications from UW-Madison doctoral students for research support for the summer. Applications are received from UW-Madison Ph.D. students with a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, with research engaged in the field of science and technology studies. Awards support preliminary or pilot research in advance of the student’s dissertation, or a phase of the student’s dissertation research.
June Jeon (Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology) is a PhD candidate in Sociology (joint-PhD candidate in Environmental Studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He investigates how state power and the market system co-organize scientific institutions, and how the mode of production of scientific knowledge in such institutional contexts systematically fails to address the problem of social and environmental justice. He is currently finishing his dissertation entitled “Scientific Habitus: Power, Ignorance, and Institutions in a Bioenergy Research in the United States”.
Yidong (Steven) Wang’s (Journalism & Mass Communication) research revolves around the question how interactions among media technologies, media production, and culture foster social changes. His current project focuses on how the digital media infrastructure conditions the experience and expression of queer sexualities among LGBT+ communities—particularly the ecological co-constitution of technological platforms and queer cultures of user communities. He also conducts research on politico-cultural discourses channeled through digital media in social movements like the Hong Kong localist movement and the marriage equality movement in Taiwan.
Chris Wirz (Life Sciences Communication) is interested in the public opinion, (social) media discourse, and networks involved in the communication of controversial science, health, and risk-related topics. He is also interested in the dynamics surrounding stakeholder communication about science- and risk-related issues, especially when these interactions involve different types of expertise and power.