Larry Au

2026 Pre-Conference Science, Knowledge and Technology Today: Meeting the Moment, Engendering Just Futures The Science, Knowledge & Technology (SKAT) section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) will host…

The Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association is hosting a pre-conference here at City College (in our FiDi division)!

Our call for abstracts is open until April 1, 2026.

asaskat.com/skattoday/

Our section is hosting a pre-conference for the ASA annual meeting—Science, Knowledge, and Technology Today: Meeting the Moment, Engendering Just Futures.

Join us on Friday, August 7 in NYC!

The call for papers is now open, with abstract submissions due April 1: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Are female economists treated differently than males in academic seminars?

These authors wanted to know whether gender shapes how scholars are treated when presenting research.

So they built a massive dataset of 2,000+ economics seminars, job talks, and conference presentations from 2019–2023...

We're convening a one-day symposium on Long Covid and Society in New York City on April 20, 2026. If anyone's interested in helping plan, attend, or potentially speaking, please reach out 🙂

I'm co-chairing the Society for Social Studies of Science @4sweb.bsky.social Conference in Toronto, Oct 2026. #STS #scipol #innovation

Theme: "TechnoPower • Technoscientific Futures".

Open panel submissions portal is open! ls!

Deadline: 2nd February 2026

www.4sonline.org/about_the_co...

🔬 Robert K. Merton Book Award (Deadline: 1/15/2026)

@asaskat.bsky.social invites nominations for the 2026 Robert K. Merton Book Award. The award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding book on science, knowledge, and/or technology published during the preceding two years (2025/2024).

No nominating statement is required. Print copies of nominated books must be received by all committee members by Feb 15, 2026. Please contact the committee chair for mailing addresses. All nominees must be registered members of the ASA and SKAT to be considered for this award.

Single/multi-authored works are eligible, but not edited volumes. The winner will be honored at the ASA Annual Meeting in New York City (Aug 2026). The deadline for nominations is Jan 15, 2026. Nominations should be sent to the committee chair, Larry Au (lau1@ccny.cuny.edu).

🔬 Robert K. Merton Book Award (Deadline: 1/15/2026)

@asaskat.bsky.social invites nominations for the 2026 Robert K. Merton Book Award. The award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding book on science, knowledge, and/or technology published during the preceding two years (2025/2024).

Life in China: When economic indicators and lived experience diverge | Following the Yuan After speaking with over 50 residents in more than 10 cities and towns she visited this year, Wanqing writes about the things that cannot be priced into markets.

"The vast disparities in how people live across city tiers make me rethink what lies behind labels such as 'weak demand' and 'involution', and what cannot be priced into markets."

The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate Videogame executive Xu Bo, said to have more than 100 children, and other elites are building mega-families—testing citizenship laws and drawing on nannies, IVF and legal firms set up to help them.

“An increasing number of “crazy rich” clients are commissioning dozens, or even hundreds, of U.S.-born babies with the goal of “forging an unstoppable family dynasty,” he said.” www.wsj.com/us-news/chin...

Two dogs in winter jacket in the snow in McCarren Park

Our dog Binu with foster dog #22 Jerry ❄️

Northeastern is hiring in Ethics and Health! The job is tenure track with great colleagues in a great city.

Philosophers of science, bioethicists, research ethicists, and STS scholars, please apply! Soft deadline is December 15th.
philjobs.org/job/show/30469

Feeling burned out? There's a word for that in Mandarin Chinese How an obscure term used in anthropology leaped from the pages of academia into the Chinese meme world and then became part of Chinese government policymaking.

"the term has come full circle to its roots describing unproductive economic activity. Might one say the word neijuan … has made a full involution?"

www.npr.org/2025/12/10/n...

From Clinical Trials to Real‐World Impact: Introducing a Computational Framework to Detect Endpoint Bias in Opioid Use Disorder Research Introduction Clinical trial endpoints are a ‘finite sequence of instructions to perform a task’ (measure treatment effectiveness), making them algorithms. Consequently, they may exhibit algorithmic ...

📝 Sharing a new paper with collaborators on algorithmic bias in AI medicine and clinical trial diversity, and a new computational tool that we developed to help identify endpoints that may lead to bias

dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar....

🩺 Inside the Network: Health Network T examines how health and medicines are shaped by political economy, economic sociology, organizational studies, socioeconomics, and related fields. The network studies how institutions, markets, and social actors structure the production and distribution of health across societies. 🧪 Political economy and the production of medicines Research explores how states, firms, and innovators develop new drugs and health technologies in both high and low resource settings, and how these strategies influence health outcomes globally. 🏥 Organizing and the organization of health systems This area looks at healthcare markets, insurance systems, medical devices, patient-physician relationships, the rise of health intermediaries, and emerging applications of artificial intelligence in medicine. 📊 Pricing and valuation Scholars investigate how value is assigned to treatments, pharmaceuticals, and care delivery. Work includes financialization, pricing, access to medicines, and the contested authority of medical expertise. 🏛 Public policy and access to healthcare Research focuses on how national and global institutions shape access to care, how policies respond to structural causes of health inequality, and how cross-national differences influence health outcomes. Network T offers an interdisciplinary space for researchers seeking to understand how political, economic, and social structures shape health systems and the conditions of well-being. Learn more about Network T: https://lnkd.in/gz8ps8sD Network T Health is accepting submissions for SASE 2026 in Bordeaux, deadline 16 December 2025: https://lnkd.in/g5DVMM7h #InsideTheNetwork #SASE #SASECommunity #HealthResearch #HealthInnovation #Drugs #Medicines #HealthTech #Healthcare #Pharma #PoliticalEconomy #SocioEconomics #EconomicSociology #HealthSystems #GlobalHealthPolicy #MarketsandSociety #Valuation #Innovation Kathryn Ibata-Arens Etienne NOUGUEZ Larry Au Steven Casper

Submissions for #SASE2026 in Bordeaux closes on Dec 16. Consider submitting a paper to the Health Network. Happy to chat about fit and more about our meetings!

Submit here: sase.org/events/2026-...

Disability rights activist and author Alice Wong dies at 51 The MacArthur "Genius" Award-winner was best known as the founder of the Disability Visibility Project, which highlights disabled people and disability culture through storytelling projects, social me...

Here's @npr.org's Obituary of Alice Wong:
www.npr.org/2025/11/15/n...

Upcoming Virtual Panel!

Navigating the Academic Job Market for SKAT Scholars

Details ⤵️

🗓️ Friday, November 14, 1-2pm ET

SKAT section members and other ASA members on the job market are invited to join. Panelists will speak about their recent experiences navigating the market, followed by a Q&A.

For CUNY folks: The China at CUNY Initiative (CACI) is recruiting Fellows for Spring 2026. CACI aims to integrate China Studies into the curriculum across CUNY campuses. The fellowship provides support to graduate students teaching their own courses.

More information: chinacuny.org/spring2026/

Got this plaque today, and had a chance to talk about my book project! 🏆

Robert K. Merton Book Award Deadline: 1/15/2026 The Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section invites nominations (including self-nominations) for the 2026 Robert K. Merton Book Award. The award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding book on science, knowledge, and/or technology published during the preceding two years (2025 or 2024). Single or multi-authored works are eligible, but not edited volumes. The winner will be honored at the ASA Annual Meeting in New York City (August 2026). The deadline for nominations is January 15, 2026. Nominations or requests for more information should be sent to the committee chair, Larry Au (lau1@ccny.cuny.edu). No nominating statement or letter is required (nor will be considered as part of the committee’s review of nominations). Print copies of nominated books must be received by all committee members by February 15, 2026. Please contact the committee chair for mailing addresses. All nominees must be registered members of the ASA and SKAT to be considered for this award.

📖 Consider nominating yourselves or others for the Robert K. Merton Book Award from @asaskat.bsky.social. Books published in 2024 or 2025 are eligible.

Looking forward to reading this year's nominations!

More info: asaskat.com/call-for-awa...

Genre borrowing in Chinese digital culture: Narrative imagination and grassroots storytelling on social media - Guobin Yang, 2025 A notable feature in Chinese digital culture is its playful style. Memes, jokes, parodies, and coded language of all sorts abound on social media. While researc...

This is fascinating! Sima Qian is surely making a comeback! People wrote Shiji-style biographies of Li Wenliang during Wuhan lockdown - my piece on this is just out, open-access journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Emergency Medicaid at Risk — Preserving State Authority and Access to Care | NEJM States that use federal dollars to provide health care to unauthorized immigrants, beyond narrowly defined emergency services, will now face enforcement actions and potential recoupment of funds.

Emergency Medicaid accounts for <1% of Medicaid spending — yet saves lives & money.
Restricting it ignores evidence, burdens states, and harms communities.

Our latest via @nejm.org
Emergency Medicaid at Risk - Preserving State Authority and Access to Care

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

🧵1/6

Emergency Medicaid at Risk — Preserving State Authority and Access to Care | NEJM States that use federal dollars to provide health care to unauthorized immigrants, beyond narrowly defined emergency services, will now face enforcement actions and potential recoupment of funds.

Our new NEJM commentary argues on the need to preserve state autonomy for Emergency Medicaid, and the critical role EM plays in supporting undocumented immigrants and safety net hospitals

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Bryn Mawr College is hiring an Assistant Professor in Sociology with a specialization in social movements! The applications are due on September 19th. It is a fantastic place to be a scholar and educator—please spread the word! I'm happy to answer questions to the best of my ability!

Next week, @fuzheng.bsky.social and I will workshop our paper on public perception of AI evaluation in China based on a national survey. If you are at NYC - come and say hi!

🗞️ NYC-area researchers, come join us for the TASKS (Theory and Analysis in Science, Knowledge, and Society) Workshop this Fall. Papers on AI governance, self-tracking devices, air pollution and climate change, and Chinese investment capital in the US.

🔗 More info: tasks.commons.gc.cuny.edu

Weekend lecture prep on the history of medicine, condensing this book into 2.5 hours of class time

Kicked off our Fall seminar series at the China at CUNY Initiative last week with talks from faculty affiliates on Chinese immigrant tech workers, public opinion in China, and stratified citizenship and labor protests.

Exciting semester ahead: chinacuny.org

The Department of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University invites applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the area of “Science, Technology, and Governance.” #HPS #STS #PhilJobs
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30301