Fellowship Opportunity | Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Trust and Mistrust of Science and Experts

NEWSMEN AND SPECTATORS STAND IN FRONT OF THE MAIN GATE OF THE THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION IN MIDDLETOWN, PENN., APRIL 2, 1979.
JACK KANTHAL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The American Assembly, along with INCITE recently received funding from the Mellon foundation to conduct the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Trust and Mistrust of Science and Experts. The seminar will bring together scholars from multiple disciplines, engaging the Columbia community and the surrounding public in productive discussion on issues of trust and mistrust, in the form of reading groups, public forums, and workshops. We aim to build this series of conversations among different parts of the university by moving thematically through four orienting cases: (1) rhetoric, risk, and trust in climate science; (2) minority communities’ trust in science; (3) the politics of vaccination; and (4) trust in algorithms. These are subjects where the tensions and difficulties underlying discussions of trust are exposed in stark relief.

The seminar will launch in fall of 2020 and conclude in the spring of 2022. We are currently inviting advanced doctoral students from all Columbia University schools, who are within two years of completing their dissertations, to apply for a 2020/21 graduate fellowship. The deadline for applications is December 15th, 2019, at 5 p.m. For further details and instructions, click below.