1. Can you briefly introduce yourself? 

My name is Kass, and I’m a second-year double major in Comparative Studies and Sustainable Plant Systems. I got involved in STS after taking COMPSTD 2340, Introduction to Cultures of Science and Technology, with Dr. Maya Cruz. I loved the class so much that I wanted to keep learning more after it ended! 

2. What project are you currently working on? 

I’m currently taking an independent study with Dr. Cruz! We’re focusing on themes of multispecies kinship, and I’m reading a lot of texts related to relationships between humans and our fellow creatures, including animals, plants, and microorganisms. The goal of the independent study is to expand upon a research paper I wrote during COMPSTD 2340 about the US horse breeding industry. I’m drawn to topics of multispecies relationships both because my background is in farming, which relies on collaborating with other organisms, and because multispecies relationships are often ignored, compartmentalized, or even exploited by Western science. I really believe we can learn a lot about being human by studying the ways we treat other creatures (and the ways they treat us)! 

3. What surprised you most about STS? 

I was most surprised by how rich and complex the field of STS is, considering I hadn’t really heard of it before this year. I think many people think of science as a practice with very strict rules, boundaries, and goals that are more or less set in stone. Having the opportunity to read scholars who trace the lineage of those rules while pointing out the ways in which Western science/technology succeeds and fails has honestly made the world feel a little more exciting and a little more open. I was happily surprised to find out that there are so many amazing people thinking about how to create more ethical technologies and more ethical scientific practices, particularly ones that are grounded in feminist  anticolonial/antiracist pathways. 

4. How does STS feel different from other classes in your major? 

STS is an interdisciplinary field, which leaves a lot of room for fluidity compared to some other classes. There’s room for both poetry and pie charts, for videos of robots dancing and formal academic papers. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2020) is a great example of how malleable the boundaries of the field are. In Undrowned, Gumbs fluctuates between writing on the biology of sea creatures to meditating on Black history, while using her skillset as a poet to keep the text deeply emotionally impactful. Similarly, The Promise of Multispecies Justice (2022) is a collection of works by different STS authors theorizing ways of thinking about interspecies flourishing; the book includes everything from an ethnographic story about the ghost of a bull in India to a poem about a nearly extinct species of kingfisher. While some corners of STS look more like what we think of as traditional academia, other scholars aren’t afraid to push creative boundaries, and I think the combination of different forms is really cool and refreshing! 

5. Can you share a project you’re especially proud of? 

As I mentioned before, I’m currently working on a project about the US horse breeding industry. I’m tracing the lineage of early horse breeding as a colonial project to modern day, when horses can be worth millions of dollars based on their genetic history. It’s a paper I’m really excited to get to work on, in part because I grew up around horses and I never thought they’d find their way into my academic life! It’s also a project rooted in questions regarding biocapital and genetic manipulation, which I find really interesting and important. We’re living through an era in which the gene is the new “frontier” (to paraphrase STS scholar Sarah Franklin) -- in other words, something mainstream Western science is trying to both understand and conquer. Although the paper is, on face value, about horses, there’s a lot to be learned about humans along the way.   

6. How has this work changed how you see technology in your everyday life? 

STS as a whole has made me notice how many stories we tell ourselves about technology. These stories aren’t necessarily good or bad – in fact, many STS scholars, including Ruha Benjamin and Sheila Jasanoff, have written about the power of imagination and storytelling for creating more equitable technoscientific futures. You have to notice the stories, though, in order to decide if they’re the ones you want to live through or ones you want to help rewrite. After all, many technoscientific imaginaries are rooted in racism and colonialism (including stories of AI and even those of horse breeding). 

7. How do you imagine using what you’ve learned in the future, in your career, further study, or everyday life? 

I plan on attending grad school after completing undergrad. If possible, I’d love to continue down the STS path! As someone who has an artist brain but who also really loves biology, I thought I’d have to choose one or the other to focus on; instead, I have this opportunity to approach the science field from a feminist humanities standpoint. I’m grateful to have found this field in undergrad, as I’ll hopefully go to grad school with a good foundation of STS knowledge and at least one finished paper about horses under capitalism! 

8. What would you say to another student who’s curious about STS but unsure if it’s for them? 

This is a little nerdy and specific, but I would encourage them to look up an STS publication journal, such as Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience or Osiris, and just scroll through the table of contents for whatever the last few editions were. If the titles of the different papers spark joy and/or curiosity (example: Through the Eyes of the T. rex: Animal Behavior in Dinosaur Fiction by Luke-Elizabeth Gartley, Catalyst, Vol. 9, No. 2), I’d tell them to take COMPSTD 2340 to learn more about the field!