experiences on contributing to DIY bio communities as a social scientist / non-STEM person?

[Bue Thastum]

Hi everyone

I’m curious wether there are any people out there with social science or humanities, or other non-science backgrounds that have any experiences on being able to draw on that in contributing to DIY biology communities.   

I'm currently starting to try and involve myself a bit in my local DIY biology community, partly as research for my sociology thesis, though also motivated by personal curiosity and excitement on learning more about various projects and practices. My background is mostly in sociology, mixed up with a bit of anthropology, misc. humanities stuff and some journalism and communications. I’ve had some amount of interest in social studies of science / STS stuff, but I’ve never had taken any actual university-level science classes.  

I recently started thinking about, in the case that I want to get more involved in DIY biology after finishing my thesis,  whether there’d actually be any ways that I could use my background to contribute in interesting ways. So I’d love to hear about if there are any other people with backgrounds similar to mine, or just in some other ways have entered DIY biology without a STEM-background, that have managed to find ways to make their knowledge and skills useful and which experiences you have with that.   

Cheers, 

Bue

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Bue Thastum

+45 61 70 53 90

skype: buethastum

http://buethastum.dk

twitter: @buethastum

[Brian Degger]

Hi Bue!

Super question.

I would point you to IGEM, but there is a lot more out there in science communications and science technology studies.

Cheers

Brian

check out IGEM human practices objective....basically every igem project has a social scientist or does some social research http://igem.org/Human_Practices

Project development

Human Practices is a key component in the development of an iGEM project where teams consider the many ways that their research can impact society. The work that they do in this varies in many ways; some teams will question how synthetic biology could change our view of life and science, others will have an active dialogue with their community in order to asses the needs of the world around them and to educate the public about synthetic biology. Some teams have ventured into policy making by creating proposals to help advance the science in their country. Students have also developed educational resources in their language to teach younger and older generations about science, engineering, and biology. The safety and security risks are assessed by all teams as a competition requirement. They must actively consider how their project will affect their environment and how it will affect public perception.

Human Practices topic areas

• Philosophy
• Public Engagement / Dialogue
• Education
• Product Design
• Scale-Up and Deployment Issues
• Environmental Impact
• Ethics
• Safety
• Security
• Law and Regulation
• Risk Assessment

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Brian Degger

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http://makerspace.org.uk

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[Georgi Dimitrov]

Hi Bue ,

I am just finishing MSc of engineering in Bioinformatics and Systems biology in DTU  Till the end of the year , I intend to register  CVR of my Bulgarian non-government organization for development of scinece and sport here in Copenhagen . I am interested in meeting other biohackers and organize  something .

[Bue Thastum]

Hi Georgi

If you don't already know about it you should check out Biologigaragen, as they are trying to gather biohackers (as well as whoever else is interested) in Copenhagen. They are frequently organizing open house-like events called Biology and Beer. The next one is this thursday at eight. I only think is has been announced on facebook. Here's the event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/195589994109295/

Cheers

[Bue Thastum]

Hi Brian

Looks great. I did hear about IGEM before, but haven't gotten around to properly checking it out yet. Happy to learn that they are they are incorporating issues related to stuff like public dialogue, social justice and philospohy.

Best,
Bue

[Brian Degger]

I think it's a good example of social sciences working with biosciences.

http://www.bio-commons.org/ also looks interesting  ;)

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[Bue Thastum]

Yeah. That wiki-system they're using looks pretty cool, too. Haven't seen it before.

[Karen Ingram]

Hi Bue-

I am one of those non-STEM backgrounders who has participated in the DIY bio community and it's yielded positive outcomes for myself and those in STEM who I've worked with. I'm an artist with a digital design/marketing background. I enjoy applying that thinking to the synthetic biology arena. I recently co-authored a book w/ 3 other amazing folks "Biobuilder: Synthetic Biology in the Lab (O'Reilly, 2015)", based on the curriculum from Natalie Kuldell's Biobuilder Foundation, and it includes a chapter on ethics. Your interest and expertise could add a great value to the arena of DIYBio, and provide a lot of context.

Best,
Karen

[Georgi Dimitrov]

I am interested

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[Bue Thastum]

Hi Karen

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences and thoughts. The book looks really cool.

Cheers,
Bue