The School of Information Sciences is pleased to welcome Dr. Geoffrey C. Bowker to the faculty of the iSchool. Bowker will serve as Professor and Senior Scholar in Cyberscholarship. Dr. Bowker previously served as the Executive Director and the Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor at the Center for Science, Technology and Society at Santa Clara University (CA). At Santa Clara, he also held a professorship in Communication and Environmental Studies as well as faculty positions at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Bowker earned his PhD at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in History and Philosophy of Science and followed up with an extended post doctoral position at the Ecole des Mines in Paris.

Bowker has authored/co-authored three books including (with Susan Leigh Star) Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1999) and Memory Practices in Science, 1830-1990 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006). Bowker won both the Ludwig Fleck Prize for Best Book in Science, Technology and Society and the American Society for Information Science and Technology’s Best Information Science Book Award for Memory Practices in Science. He is the author or co-author of more than 55 articles in journals including Social Studies of Science, IEEE Annuals of the History of Computing, D-Lib Magazine, International Journal of GIS, and the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.   He serves on the Editorial Boards of Social Studies of Science and Metadata. With Susan “Leigh” Star, he serves as an editor of Science, Technology and Human Values.

Bowker’s research interests include cyberscholarship, cyberinfrastructure for the sciences, critical reading of databases, classification and its consequences, science and technology studies, memory practices, and the history of information practices.  His research includes numerous NSF-funded projects including “Monitoring, Modeling and Memory: Dynamics of Data and Knowledge in Scientific Cyberinfrastructures” (NSF 0827333:  $193, 905); “History and Theory of Infrastructure: Distilling Lessons for New Scientific Cyberinfrastructures” (NSF 0630263: $91,911); and “Interoperability Strategies for Scientific Cyberinfrastructure: A Comparative Study” (NSF #0433369: $650,000).

Here at the School of Information Sciences, Geoff will examine the nature of scholarly communication in diverse disciplines exploring those transformative factors that will trigger transformation within a discipline as a result of the digital environment. With the support of a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bowker will develop the resources and framework for understanding how scholars in different disciplines develop their informatics (including bases of evidence and techniques for interacting with that evidence) as the underlying discipline adapts to the emerging digital technologies that make up cyberinfrastructure.

“Geoff Bowker is one of the leading scholars studying at the nexus of scholarly communication and cyberinfrastructure, which has taken on increased relevance and urgency as digital technologies continue to demonstrate the potential to radically transform scholarly communication,” explains Ronald L. Larsen, Dean of the School of Information Sciences.  “As the sheer volume of scientific information continues to grow geometrically, it becomes vital that we understand the rapidly changing landscape of data-intensive scholarship.  Bowker’s work will position the iSchool at the University of Pittsburgh at the forefront of this emerging area of research and scholarship.” 

Dr. Bowker comes to Pitt through a five-year program, underwritten by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to develop a research program to understand and influence the evolution of digital communication and research in academia, known as cyberscholarship. The cyberscholarship program will sustain the iSchool’s century-long reputation as a leader in advancing the creative use of information on behalf of society.

The School of Information Sciences is pleased to announce that Susan “Leigh” Star is joining the faculty of the iSchool. Star will hold the Doreen E. Boyce Chair in Library and Information Science, named in honor of Dr. Boyce, who served for many years as President of the Buhl Foundation. Star was selected for the Boyce Chair because of her interest and scholarship in the broad roles of the library and of information in modern society.  Dr. Star will lead the iSchool in shaping a research agenda and curriculum on the changing role of libraries in response to the continually changing needs of our networked global society.

Dr. Star will also serve as the Director of the Sara Fine Institute (SFI), which is dedicated to examining the ways technology impacts interpersonal communications and relationships with family, friends, professional colleagues, governing bodies, health care providers, and educational institutions. SFI Faculty Affiliates conduct research on social, political, ethical, medical, technical, and educational issues via innovative research projects and campus-community partnerships.

Star comes to Pitt from Santa Clara University (CA), where she served as a Professor in the Center for Science, Technology and Society.  She has held academic and scholarly positions at the University of California, Irvine; University of Caligari (Italy); University of California at San Diego; and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Dr. Star was awarded her PhD in Sociology by the University of California, San Francisco.

Star has been a co-Principal Investigator or a team member on a number of NSF-funded projects including “Monitoring, Modeling and Memory: Dynamics of Data and Knowledge in Scientific Cyberinfrastructures” and “Towards a Virtual Organization for Data Cyberinfrastructure.”  Dr. Star is the author of Boundary Objects and the Poetics of Infrastructure (to be published by MIT Press in 2009) and co-author (with Geoffrey Bowker) of Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (MIT Press 2000). She has published extensively in academic journals including Ethics and Information Technology, Social Studies of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and American Behavioral Scientist.  Star serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief of Science, Technology and Human Values, the official publication of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (she was president of the Society from 2005-2007). In 2004, Star was elected to the Sociological Research Association, a lifetime achievement honor from the Society for American Sociological Association.

“We are incredibly excited to welcome Dr. Star to the iSchool and to the University of Pittsburgh,” states Ronald L. Larsen, Dean of the iSchool.  “Her international scholarly reputation advances our capacity to prepare students for the challenges they will face as leaders in the information professions, and for them to view information and technology from a broad social perspective.  Dr. Star will teach in both the graduate and undergraduate programs, as well as lead a research program that will advance our collective understanding of the information needs of a truly global, networked society.”

The Doreen E. Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science was established in August 1999 with a substantial gift from the Buhl Foundation.  Dr. Boyce was the President of the Foundation for 25 years and was a strong advocate for improving the human condition through informed use of technology.  It is the first named chair in the School of Information Sciences, where the curriculum and research activities are focused on people, their information needs, and the technology to manage such information.