Larry Au

Meet our SKAT student members Every year we publish profiles of some of our SKAT section student members to highlight some of the important work that they are doing. Below, see the bios of nine of our student members. If you se…

👋 Meet nine of our SKAT Section student members, and learn more about their research. Remember to say hi to them in Chicago at #ASA2025!

asaskat.com/2025/08/06/m...

Do Artifacts Have Political Economy? - Kean Birch, 2025 Harking back to Langdon Winner's now classic essay “Do artifacts have politics?,” my aim in this article is to ask a very similar question—namely, do artif...

I have a new article out: "Do artifacts have political economy?" It's a riff on an old argument by Langdon Winner about the embedding of politics in technology

#STS #sociology #technoscience #technology #innovation

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Why is Coal Still Mined? Insights from Asbestos and the Structures of Risk Invisibilization The deleterious consequences of coal mining are well known, but little attention is paid to the most egregious of all: black lung disease. The 21st-century resurgence of black lung sheds light onto th...

My latest paper is out in the very first issue of Theory and Social Inquiry: www.theoryandsocialinquiry.org/article/id/1....

Congratulations to the editorial board for this successful journal launch! 🥳

Knowledge #2: Scientific and Social Scientific Knowledge

Mon, Aug 11, 2-3:30pm, East Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago, Floor: Ballroom Level/Gold, Grand Hall H

Link 🔗: tinyurl.com/26qc98oa

🔊 Organizing two regular sessions at #ASA2025 this year on Knowledge. Come by!

Knowledge #1: Data, Risk, and Knowledge in Health Policy

Sun, Aug 10, 12-1:30pm, West Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago, Floor: Ballroom Level/Gold, Atlanta

Link 🔗: tinyurl.com/242ch2h9

Computing, Co-Creation, and the Well-Informed Citizen By Besnik Pula, Virginia Tech, bpula@vt.edu Drawing from the first issue of the Menlo Park-based group People’s Computer Company Newsletter (October 1972). In its landmark 2021 report on AI ethics,…

My entry in @asaskat.bsky.social's blog discusses the role of hobbyists and computer groups in co-creating modern computing platforms and the lessons they offer for the AI era, building on Alfred Schutz's classic essay on the well-informed citizen

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert A Scientific Brain Drain Has Followed Trump’s Gutting Of The NIH - Dr. Francis Collins

Already on YouTube youtu.be/lW9c6t4potU?...

Anthropic will face a class-action lawsuit from US authors

Summer 2025 SKAT Newsletter Announcement Submission Dear SKAT Section Members, If you have any announcement you would like to be included in the Summer 2025 SKAT Newsletter, please use the form below to submit details. Announcements include new articl...

🔊 Do you have a new publication, announcement, or call that you would like to publicize to the SKAT community?

Please use this Google Form by July 31 so we can include it in our Summer newsletter:
forms.gle/c4iamWn67biB...

Calling all student members in SKAT!

⚕️ Come join us in the Virtual SASE panel hosted by the Research Network on Health on July 1, 12-1:30 pm ET!

SASE virtual sessions are free and open to all. 🆓

Register here 🔗: virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/37937/...

“Inequality is built-in to science. While not every issue is contoured by power in the same way, all science is an enduring product of power, its unequal circulation, use & impact.”

Scott Frickel & Kelly Moore explore how this is so & how we can address it ↓
www.politybooks.com/...

Join us tomorrow!

⚕️ Come join us in the Virtual SASE panel hosted by the Research Network on Health on July 1, 12-1:30 pm ET!

SASE virtual sessions are free and open to all. 🆓

Register here 🔗: virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/37937/...

Launching a new project on immigrant health: "Bridging Gaps in Cancer Care: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Investigating the Cancer Care Barriers, Facilitators, and Outcomes for Patients with Emergency Medicaid"

Learn more about the project and team here: bgcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu

🚨New blog! Yolanda Wiggins, SJSU sociologist and Public Voices Fellow w/ The Op-Ed Project, urges us to "Let Sociology Majors Dream Bigger" and trust that the discipline "can thrive beyond traditional academic spaces"

↪️contexts.org/blog/dream-bigger/

✍️ Check out these new article publications from SKAT section members this past spring!

A thread:

Laura Brandt, Larry Au, Clinton Castro, and Gabriel J. Odom. 2025. “Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness”. npj Digital Medicine 8, 292. doi.org/10.1038/s417...

🧑‍🎓 Are you a SKAT student member?

Please consider filling this Google Form for our "Meet our SKAT student members" newsletter column in preparation for #ASA2025!

forms.gle/uMcuUmgvDD76...

Course comments from students stating that they benefited from Spanish tutoring

I do not offer Spanish tutoring in my Research Methods class. The joys of student teaching evaluations. 😅

Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness - npj Digital Medicine npj Digital Medicine - Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness

Sharing our new article on "Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness" published in npj Digital Medicine.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Skilled immigration on the chopping block? Effects of eliminating "Optional Practical Training" in the US The White House has taken numerous steps to sharply reduce the number of immigrant workers, with or without legal status, in the US economy. These policies, so far, typically target immigrants with le...

They're terminating OPT.

Today the nominee to head USCIS stated directly: he will end Optional Practical Training, the single largest channel for high-skill immigrants to work in the US.

6 weeks ago I warned about this & summarized the research on impacts of this drastic action—> @piie.com

New Workshop: Theory and Analysis in Science, Knowledge, and Society (TASKS)

asaskat.com/2025/05/20/n...

Sociology Professor Larry Au is being recognized with one of this year's Henry Wasser Awards for Outstanding Research for Assistant Professors in CUNY. The Feliks Gross Endowment Awards are named after two of the CUNY Academy's founding members, Feliks Gross and Henry Wasser. Every year, CUNY selects recipients from among a large group of highly qualified, academically impressive Assistant Professors from all its campuses. Professor Au's research examines the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the production of biomedical knowledge, and asks how clinicians and scientists can better serve their patients and the public. His work has focused on two main areas: the globalization of precision medicine, and the politics of expertise around Long Covid. He is also currently working on a book under contract with Columbia University Press, titled Dreams of Global Science: The Transnational Politics of Chinese Biomedical Innovation which explores the ideals of globalization in science and its inherent inequalities. As part of the award ceremony, Professor Au will present his research in a talk alongside other awardees during the Feliks Gross and Henry Wasser lecture series, where the award will also be officially conferred.

Honored to receive one of the Henry Wasser Awards from the CUNY Academy, given to outstanding junior faculty across our 22 campuses!

More info: www.gc.cuny.edu/cuny-academy...

This is so incredibly sad and deflating.

We have policy driven by conspiracy theories, deep grievances against who knows what exactly, and a cult-like devotion to an incurious, anti-science, anti-knowledge leader.

People are going to die and be disabled for absolutely nothing.

In the commentary, we describe strategies our team used to ensure semantic transparency in standards used in AI/ML systems for opioid use disorders, and how we sought to align design choices with the values of affected parties. This research was funded by the NIH's AIM-AHEAD program.

Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness - npj Digital Medicine npj Digital Medicine - Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness

Sharing our new article on "Engaging an advisory board in discussions about the ethical relevance of algorithmic bias and fairness" published in npj Digital Medicine.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."

Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.

I wrote about my decision in TIME.

time.com/7285045/resi...

Photo of David Ho being interviewed with his 1996 Time cover on screen

Learned a lot from David Ho’s keynote dialogue at the PRI Innovation Showcase 🔬:

- Tell the difference between dogma/truth, should/could

- His team moved into Columbia dorms in 2020 so they could research

- Receives daily recruitment emails now from Europe and Asia with U.S science in question