Paul N. Edwards
Senior Lecturer in the Program in Science, Technology and Society
Inter-Departmental Programs
Web page: https://profiles.stanford.edu/paul-edwards
Bio
I'm Director of the Program on Science, Technology & Society (STS) and a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford. I also co-direct the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative with Prof. Steve Luby.
I'm Professor of Information and History (Emeritus) at the University of Michigan, where I worked for almost 20 years in the School of Information, the Dept. of History, and the STS Program. I taught previously at Stanford from 1992-1998 in various capacities, mainly in the Science, Technology & Society Program that I now direct.
I study the history, politics, and culture of information infrastructures, especially climate knowledge systems. My books include A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010), The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (MIT Press, 1996), and Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance (MIT Press, 2001, co-edited with Clark Miller). I'm academic editor of the MIT Press book series Infrastructures.
From 2018-2021, I served as one of 234 Lead Authors for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group I (Physical Sciences), released in August 2021.
Academic Appointments
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Senior Lecturer, Inter-Departmental Programs
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Sr Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Administrative Appointments
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Director, Program in Science, Technology & Society (2019 - Present)
Honors & Awards
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Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Sustainability, Graham Institute, University of Michigan (2016-17)
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Senior Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows (2016-17)
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Resident Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study in Media Cultures of Computer Simulation, Leuphana University (2015)
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Louis J. Battan Author's Award, American Meteorological Society (2013)
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Computer History Museum Book Prize, Society for the History of Technology (2011)
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Carnegie Scholar, Carnegie Corporation of New York (2003-04)
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Guggenheim Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2003-04)
Program Affiliations
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Modern Thought and Literature
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Program in History & Philosophy of Science
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Science, Technology and Society
Professional Education
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PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz, History of Consciousness (1988)
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BA, Wesleyan University, Language and Mind (1980)
2024-25 Courses
- Climate Politics: Science and Global Governance
INTLPOL 271, STS 200S (Win) - Curricular Practical Training
STS 199A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Introduction to Science, Technology & Society
STS 1 (Win) - Preventing Human Extinction
COLLEGE 107 (Spr) - What is Science & Technology Studies (STS)?
STS 301 (Spr) -
Independent Studies (4)
- Advanced Individual Work
STS 299 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Directed Reading
INTLPOL 299 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Independent Research
STS 198 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Independent Study
STS 199 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Advanced Individual Work
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Climate Politics: Science and Global Governance
INTLPOL 271 (Aut) - Curricular Practical Training
STS 199A (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Introduction to AI Alignment
STS 10SI (Aut, Win) - MLA Practicum: Science, Technology, and Society: Past, Present, Future
MLA 202P (Sum) - Preventing Human Extinction
COLLEGE 107 (Spr) - Technometabolism: Technology, Society, and the Anthropocene
STS 200J (Aut)
2022-23 Courses
- Advanced AI Alignment
STS 20SI (Win, Spr) - Climate Politics: Science and Global Governance
HISTORY 202J, INTLPOL 271 (Win) - Curricular Practical Training
STS 199A (Win, Spr, Sum) - Introduction to AI Alignment
STS 10SI (Aut, Win, Spr) - Preventing Human Extinction
COLLEGE 107 (Spr) - Technometabolism: Technology, Society, and the Anthropocene
STS 200J (Win)
2021-22 Courses
- Climate Politics: Science and Global Governance
HISTORY 202J, INTLPOL 271 (Aut) - Curricular Practical Training
STS 199A (Win, Spr, Sum) - Preventing Human Extinction
THINK 65 (Spr)
- Climate Politics: Science and Global Governance
All Publications
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Peer Review
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
2023: 96-104
View details for Web of Science ID 001094496000014
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Digitalization and the Anthropocene
ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES
2022; 47: 479-509
View details for DOI 10.1146/annurev-environ-120920-100056
View details for Web of Science ID 000869731800019
- Platforms are Infrastructures on Fire Your Computer is on Fire: The Politics of Computing and New Media edited by Mullaney, T. S., Peters, B., Hicks, M. MIT Press. 2021: 313–336
- Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Cambridge University Press. 2021
- Knowledge Infrastructures under Siege: Climate Data as Memory, Truce, and Target Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights Routledge. 2019
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We Have Been Assimilated: Some Principles for Thinking About Algorithmic Systems
Living with Monsters? Social Implications of Algorithmic Phenomena, Hybrid Agency, and the Performativity of Technology
Springer. 2018: 19–27
View details for DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-04091-8_3
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Infrastructure studies meet platform studies in the age of Google and Facebook
NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY
2018; 20 (1): 293–310
View details for DOI 10.1177/1461444816661553
View details for Web of Science ID 000419870900017
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Producing "one vast index'': Google Book Search as an algorithmic system
BIG DATA & SOCIETY
2017; 4 (2)
View details for DOI 10.1177/2053951717716950
View details for Web of Science ID 000407356400001
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Knowledge infrastructures for the Anthropocene
ANTHROPOCENE REVIEW
2017; 4 (1): 34–43
View details for DOI 10.1177/2053019616679854
View details for Web of Science ID 000447103500004
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Big Data Is the Answer ... But What Is the Question?
OSIRIS
2017; 32 (1): 328–45
View details for DOI 10.1086/694223
View details for Web of Science ID 000414243200016
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Downscaling From global to local in the climate knowledge infrastructure
INFRASTRUCTURES AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY: A COMPANION
2017: 339–51
View details for Web of Science ID 000416577000031
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Entangled histories: Climate science and nuclear weapons research
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
2012; 68 (4): 28–40
View details for DOI 10.1177/0096340212451574
View details for Web of Science ID 000306374300005
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AHR Conversation: Historical Perspectives on the Circulation of Information
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
2011; 116 (5): 1392–1435
View details for Web of Science ID 000298714100005
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Science friction: Data, metadata, and collaboration
SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE
2011; 41 (5): 667–90
Abstract
When scientists from two or more disciplines work together on related problems, they often face what we call 'science friction'. As science becomes more data-driven, collaborative, and interdisciplinary, demand increases for interoperability among data, tools, and services. Metadata--usually viewed simply as 'data about data', describing objects such as books, journal articles, or datasets--serve key roles in interoperability. Yet we find that metadata may be a source of friction between scientific collaborators, impeding data sharing. We propose an alternative view of metadata, focusing on its role in an ephemeral process of scientific communication, rather than as an enduring outcome or product. We report examples of highly useful, yet ad hoc, incomplete, loosely structured, and mutable, descriptions of data found in our ethnographic studies of several large projects in the environmental sciences. Based on this evidence, we argue that while metadata products can be powerful resources, usually they must be supplemented with metadata processes. Metadata-as-process suggests the very large role of the ad hoc, the incomplete, and the unfinished in everyday scientific work.
View details for DOI 10.1177/0306312711413314
View details for Web of Science ID 000294837400003
View details for PubMedID 22164720
- A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming MIT Press. 2010
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History and the Technopolitics of Identity: The Case of Apartheid South Africa
JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN STUDIES
2010; 36 (3): 619-639
View details for DOI 10.1080/03057070.2010.507568
View details for Web of Science ID 000282133200009
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Meteorology as infrastructural globalism
OSIRIS
2006; 21: 229–50
View details for DOI 10.1086/507143
View details for Web of Science ID 000240031800011
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Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time, and Social Organization in the History of Sociotechnical Systems
M I T PRESS. 2003: 185–225
View details for Web of Science ID 000279841900007
- Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance edited by Miller, C. A., Edwards, P. N. MIT Press. 2001
- The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America MIT Press. 1996
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Three institutional pathways to envision the future of the IPCC
NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE
2023
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41558-023-01780-8
View details for Web of Science ID 001063421300005
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Systematic review of marine environmental DNA metabarcoding studies: toward best practices for data usability and accessibility.
PeerJ
2023; 11: e14993
Abstract
The emerging field of environmental DNA (eDNA) research lacks universal guidelines for ensuring data produced are FAIR-findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable-despite growing awareness of the importance of such practices. In order to better understand these data usability challenges, we systematically reviewed 60 peer reviewed articles conducting a specific subset of eDNA research: metabarcoding studies in marine environments. For each article, we characterized approximately 90 features across several categories: general article attributes and topics, methodological choices, types of metadata included, and availability and storage of sequence data. Analyzing these characteristics, we identified several barriers to data accessibility, including a lack of common context and vocabulary across the articles, missing metadata, supplementary information limitations, and a concentration of both sample collection and analysis in the United States. While some of these barriers require significant effort to address, we also found many instances where small choices made by authors and journals could have an outsized influence on the discoverability and reusability of data. Promisingly, articles also showed consistency and creativity in data storage choices as well as a strong trend toward open access publishing. Our analysis underscores the need to think critically about data accessibility and usability as marine eDNA metabarcoding studies, and eDNA projects more broadly, continue to proliferate.
View details for DOI 10.7717/peerj.14993
View details for PubMedID 36992947
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10042160
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Institutions, Infrastructures, and Innovation
COMPUTER
2021; 54 (1): 103–9
View details for DOI 10.1109/MC.2020.3045254
View details for Web of Science ID 000607800000016
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Infrastructuration: On Habits, Norms, and Routines as Elements of Infrastructure
Thinking Infrastructures
Emerald Publishing. 2019: 355–66
View details for DOI 10.1108/S0733-558X20190000062022
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Re-integrating scholarly infrastructure: The ambiguous role of data sharing platforms
BIG DATA & SOCIETY
2018; 5 (1)
View details for DOI 10.1177/2053951718756683
View details for Web of Science ID 000424800800001
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Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done before and after Global English (Book Review)
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
2016; 121 (5): 1636–37
View details for DOI 10.1093/ahr/121.5.1636
View details for Web of Science ID 000400060400027
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An Archive for the Future: Paul N. Edwards on Technology, Historiography, Self, and World
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION
2016; 10: 3174–85
View details for Web of Science ID 000387814200001
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Should I Stay or Should I Go? Alternative Infrastructures in Scholarly Publishing
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION
2015; 9: 1052–71
View details for Web of Science ID 000361977300029
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Climate Change: Science and Software Introduction
IEEE SOFTWARE
2011; 28 (6): 32–35
View details for DOI 10.1109/MS.2011.141
View details for Web of Science ID 000296102300008
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History of climate modeling
WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-CLIMATE CHANGE
2011; 2 (1): 128–39
View details for DOI 10.1002/wcc.95
View details for Web of Science ID 000291739500011
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The Technopolitics of Cold War Toward a Transregional Perspective
ESSAYS ON TWENTIETH-CENTURY HISTORY
2010: 271–314
View details for Web of Science ID 000353589100008
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Introduction: An Agenda for Infrastructure Studies
JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS
2009; 10 (5): 364–74
View details for Web of Science ID 000267038000001
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Revolutionary secrets - Technology's role in the South African anti-apartheid movement
SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW
2007; 25 (1): 13–26
View details for DOI 10.1177/0894439306289556
View details for Web of Science ID 000243492400002
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"A vast machine": Standards as social technology
SCIENCE
2004; 304 (5672): 827–28
View details for DOI 10.1126/science.1099290
View details for Web of Science ID 000221243000026
View details for PubMedID 15131292
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HYPERTEXT AND HYPERTENSION - POSTSTRUCTURALIST CRITICAL-THEORY, SOCIAL-STUDIES OF SCIENCE AND SOFTWARE
SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE
1994; 24 (2): 229–78
View details for DOI 10.1177/030631279402400203
View details for Web of Science ID A1994NQ34700003