Caitlin Donahue Wylie
Associate Professor
About
I study underrecognized work and workers in research communities. This topic includes technicians whose names and work are missing from publications, students who contribute broad knowledge and learning opportunities to research groups, and community members whose expertise about their homes enriches environmental research. This topic includes who works on research teams and what they do, how people learn to conduct research, and how workers define skill, expertise, and social status. I use qualitative social research methods, including interviews and participant observation. I've researched how science and society interact at the universities of Chicago and Cambridge, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin), the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and now at UVA.
Since 2010 I've taught undergraduates majoring in science and engineering about the social and ethical importance of research, design, and technology. In my courses, students gain new insights into their majors and future professions. They become more well-rounded and socially-aware engineers and scientists, with enormous potential to improve society by applying their expertise to social problems.
Education
Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 2013
Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2013
MPhil, University of Cambridge, 2009
A.B., University of Chicago, 2008
"I study how scientists, engineers, technicians, students, and community members work together to make knowledge about science and technology."
Research Interests
Science, Technology and Society
Laboratory Studies
Engineering Education
Selected Publications
Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes. The MIT Press.
Wylie, C. D. (August 2021).
Abs
The epistemic importance of novices: How undergraduate students contribute to engineering laboratory communities. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, 31, 145-162.
Wylie, C.D. (2021).
Abs
Who should do data ethics? Patterns, 1 (1).
Wylie, C.D. (2020).
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Glass-boxing science: Laboratory work on display in museums. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 45(4), 618-635.
Wylie, C.D. (2020).
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Socialization through stories of disaster in engineering laboratories. Social Studies of Science, 49 (6), 817-838.
Wylie, C.D. (2019).
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Beyond technological literacy: Open data as active democratic engagement? Digital Culture and Society, 4 (2), 153-177.
Wylie, C.D., Neeley, K.A., and S.M. Ferguson. (2019).
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Art for institutional change: Legitimizing women in STEM through visibility. The ADVANCE Journal, 1 (1).
Fraser, G., Uffman, C., Wylie, C.D., and D. Weller. (2019).
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Students as laboratory labor. Post for Platypus, the blog of the American Anthropological Association’s Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC).
Wylie, C.D. (2019).
Abs
What “Consul the Educated Monkey” can teach us about early twentieth-century mathematics, learning, and vaudeville. In The Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge University Press, edited by J.F.K. Nall, L. Taub, and F. Willmoth.
Wylie, C.D. (2019).
Abs
Twenty Questions About Design Behavior for Sustainability. Report of the International Expert Panel on Behavioral Science for Design. Nature Sustainability.
Co-author. (2019).
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Overcoming the underdetermination of specimens. Biology & Philosophy, 34:24.
Wylie, C.D. (2019).
Abs
The plurality of assumptions about fossils and time. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 41:21.
Wylie, C.D. (2019).
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Graduate/undergraduate partnerships (GradUP): How graduate and undergraduate students learn research skills together. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.
Wylie, C.D., Kim, F., Linville, I., and A. Campo. (2019).
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In search of integration: Mapping conceptual efforts to apply STS to engineering education. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.
Neeley, K.A., Wylie, C.D., and B. Seabrook. (2019).
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"I just love research": Beliefs about what makes researchers successful. Social Epistemology, 32(4), 262-271.
Wylie, C.D. (2018).
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Trust in technicians in paleontology laboratories. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 43(2), 324-348.
Wylie, C. D. (2018).
Abs
Learning in Laboratories: How Undergraduates Participate in Engineering Research. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.
Wylie, C. D., and M. E. Gorman. (2018)
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Dimensions of Diversity in Engineering: What We Can Learn from STS. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.
Odumosu, T.B., Ferguson, S., Foley, R., Neeley, K. A., Wylie, C. D., KU, T., and R. W. Berne. (2018).
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The whole as the sum of more than the parts: Developing qualitative assessment tools to track the contribution of the humanities and social sciences to an engineering curriculum. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.
Wylie, C. D., Neeley, K. A., and T. B. Odumosu (2017).
Abs
Invisibility as a mechanism of social ordering: defining groups among laboratory workers. In J. Bangham and J. Kaplan (Eds.), Invisibility and Labour in the Human Sciences. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Preprint 484.
Wylie, C. D. (2016).
Abs
Learning out loud (LOL): How comics can develop the communication and critical thinking abilities of engineering students. American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.
Wylie, C. D., and K. A. Neeley (2016).
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“The artist’s piece is already in the stone”: Constructing creativity in paleontology laboratories. Social Studies of Science, 45 (1), 31-55.
Wylie, C. D. (2015).
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Teaching nature study on the blackboard in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. Archives of Natural History, 39 (1), 59-76.
Wylie, C. D. (2012).
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Teaching manuals and the blackboard: Accessing historical classroom practices. History of Education, 41 (2), 257-272.
Wylie, C. D. (2012).
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Setting a standard for a “silent” disease: Defining osteoporosis in the 1980s and 1990s. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 41, 376-385.
Wylie, C. D. (2010).
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Preparation in action: Paleontological skill and the role of the fossil preparator. In M. A. Brown, J. F. Kane, and W. G. Parker (Eds.), Methods in Fossil Preparation: Proceedings of the First Annual Fossil Preparation and Collections.
Wylie, C. D. (2009).
Abs
Invisibility as a mechanism of social ordering: How scientists and technicians divide power. In Invisible Labour: Power and Politics in Twentieth Century Science, Rowman & Littlefield, edited by J. Bangham, J. Kaplan, and X.S. Chacko.
Wylie, C.D. (2022).
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Socialization, tacit knowledge, and conceptions of “experience” among engineering faculty and students. Engineering Studies, 14 (1), 17-33.
Wylie, C.D. And S.J. Kim. (2022).
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Undergraduate research in engineering. In The Cambridge Handbook of Undergraduate Research, Cambridge Univ. Press, edited by H. Mieg, E. Ambos, A. Brew, D. Galli, & J. Lehmann, pp. 222-229.
Wylie, C.D. (2022).
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Courses Taught
STS 2500: Laboratory life: social research methods for studying science and engineering
STS 4500: STS and engineering practice
STS 4600: The engineer, ethics, and professional responsibility
PAVS 4500: What is Knowledge?
STS 2500: Ethical Analytics
SDS 6002: Ethics of Big Data
Awards
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) Fellowship, UVA Center for Teaching Excellence
2021-2022
Fellowship, UVA Faculty Seminar on the Teaching of Writing
2021
Research Award, University of Virginia
2020
Donchian-Casteen Teaching Fellowship, UVA Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, UVA
2018
Pavilion Seminar Course Development Award, UVA
2018
Commitment to Students Award, Student Society of P.R.I., UVA
2018
SEAS Research Innovation Award, UVA
2017-2018
Raymond and Edith Williamson Studentship, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
2009-2012
Clare Hall Bursary, Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge
2009-2012
Viola K. Bower Merit Scholarship, University of Chicago
2004-2008
Featured Grants & Projects
“Understanding the Changing Natural-Built Landscape in an Arctic Community: An integrated sensor network in Utqiagvik, Alaska”
Co-PI, NSF Navigating the New Arctic Program, with PI Howard Epstein and co-PIs Leena Cho, Matthew Jull, and Luis Felipe Rosado Murillo, January 2021 – December 2026.
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“Engineering Research Center for REstorative infrastructure through Convergent Engineering and Psychology (RE-CEP)”
Co-PI, NSF Engineering Research Center Planning Grant, with PI Leidy Klotz and co-PIs Morela Hernandez, Melissa Bilec, and Elke Weber, September 2018 – August 2019.
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“Learning in laboratories: Investigating interactions between engineering research communities and undergraduate workers”
PI, NSF Research in the Formation of Engineers program, with co-PI Michael Gorman, Sept 2016 – Aug 2017.
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