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 a pre-conference in New York City on August 7, 2026. This conference draws attention to the many crises facing global citizens in this current moment. Technological advances and scientific inquiry have contributed to global inequities, but science and technology studies also offers theoretical tools for understanding and challenging the current conjuncture.

In sociology, some of our most enduring macro theories emerge out of moments of transition, which were often prompted by or initiated shifts in science, knowledge and technology. We are currently living through unprecedented shifts in global colonizing forces, governing and immigration regimes, military apparatuses, technologies of surveillance and artificial intelligence, with immense implications for new forms of exclusion and oppression. SKAT scholars are well-positioned to offer new theoretical insights to help explain the contemporary conjuncture, the transitions we are witnessing, and to imagine more just futures.  

Plenary speakers include:

• Alondra Nelson, former deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and principal deputy director for science and society in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and current Harold F. Linder Chair at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, 
• Steven Epstein, John C. Shaffer Professor in the Humanities and Professor in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University, 
• Janet Shim, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco and Senior Co-Editor at Social Science & Medicine, and 
• Scott Frickel, Professor of Environment and Society and Chair of Sociology at Brown University, 
• Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology and Director of Social Science Matrix at the University of California, Berkeley, 
• Siri Suh, Associate Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University,
• Santiago Molina, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, and
• Jon Shaffer, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Vermont.

The pre-conference will be held at the Division for Interdisciplinary Studies at The City College of New York, CUNY at 25 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10004.

Call for Papers due April 1, 2026: https://forms.gle/qqnfAxNBBaXb4cCd7

Stay tuned for a link to donate to the conference (to cover the cost of space, technology, and food).

If you have any questions about the conference, please email SKATtoday@gmail.com.

SKAT Pre-Conference Committee: Claire Decoteau (Chair), Emily Vasquez, Jorge Ochoa, Joan Robinson, Larry Au, Melanie Jeske, Natalie Aviles, Zach Griffen, Santiago Molina