Sheila Jasanoff

Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Harvard Kennedy School
Office Address
Littauer-354
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox 17
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Phone: 617-495-7902
Fax: 617-496-5960
Email: sheila_jasanoff@harvard.edu
Assistant
Lauren Schiff (617-495-5636)
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Profile

Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has held academic positions at Cornell, Yale, Oxford, and Kyoto. At Cornell, she founded and chaired the Department of Science and Technology Studies. She has also been a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Cambridge, Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study, and Resident Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio study center. Her research concerns the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and public policy of modern democracies, with a particular focus on the challenges of globalization. She has written and lectured widely on problems of environmental regulation, risk management, and biotechnology in the United States, Europe, and India. Her books include Controlling Chemicals (1985), The Fifth Branch (1990), Science at the Bar (1995), and Designs on Nature (2005). Jasanoff has served on the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as President of the Society for Social Studies of Science.

Courses

Fall

  • IGA-313 Science, Power and Politics I

Not Offered

  • IGA-317 Expertise and Democracy in Science and Technology Policy
  • IGA-314 Science, Power, and Politics II

Spring

  • IGA-325 Bioethics, Law, and the Life Sciences

Media Expertise

Sheila Jasanoff welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.

Research

For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journals
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "Representation and Re-presentation in Litigation Science." Environmental Health Perspectives 116.1 (January 2008): 123-129.
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "Trading Uncertainties: The Transatlantic Divide in Regulating Biotechnology." CESifo DICE Report 6.2 (February 2008): 36-43.
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "Bhopal's Trials of Knowledge and Ignorance." revised and expanded in New England Law Review 42.4 (2008): 679-692.
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "The Past as Prologue in Life Extension." Society 46.3 (May 2009): 232-234.
    • Jasanoff, Sheila, and Sang-Hyung Kim. "Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea." Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning & Policy 47.2 (June 2009): 119-146.
  • Book Chapters
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "Ethical, Environmental and Social Implications of Science and Technology: Challenges for the Future." Higher Education in the World 2008. Ed. Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI). Palgrave Macmillan, May 2008, 137-141.
  • Magazine and Newspaper Articles
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "The Essential Parallel Between Science and Democracy." Seed Magazine. February 17, 2009.
  • Reviews
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "Controlling Biotechnology: Science, Democracy and 'Civic Epistomology'." Author's response to reviews of Designs on Nature, by Sheila Jasanoff. Metascience, 17.2, July 2008: 177-198.
    • Jasanoff, Sheila. "A Splintered Function: Fate, Faith, and the Father of the Atomic Bomb." Review of Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect, by Charles Thorpe. Metascience, 17.3, November 2008: 351-387.