Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 2013Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2013MPhil, University of Cambridge, 2009A.B., University of Chicago, 2008
"I study how scientists, engineers, technicians, and students make specimens, images, data, and knowledge in research laboratories."
Caitlin Donahue Wylie, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society
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. I focus on the unwritten work and workers in research communities, such as technicians whose names and work are missing from publications and students whose contributions to laboratory work are often overlooked. This topic includes who works in laboratories 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.
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 careers. They become more well-rounded and socially-aware scientists and engineers, with enormous potential to improve society by applying their expertise to social problems.
Awards
Donchian-Casteen Teaching Fellowship, UVA Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, UVA2018
Pavilion Seminar Course Development Award, UVA2018
Commitment to Students Award, Student Society of P.R.I., UVA2018
SEAS Research Innovation Award, UVA2017-2018
Raymond and Edith Williamson Studentship, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge2009-2012
Clare Hall Bursary, Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge2009-2012
Viola K. Bower Merit Scholarship, University of Chicago2004-2008
UVA researchers received a five-year, $3 million grant through the National Science Foundation’s “Navigating the New Arctic” initiative for a multidisciplinary research collaboration.
Class aims to equip students with skills to thrive in an era of 'big data'
Social scientist Caitlin Wylie and mathematician Gianluca Guadagni recently won a Donchian Teaching Fellowship to develop a new course called Ethical Analytics.
Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes. The MIT Press. ABSWylie, C. D. (August 2021).
The epistemic importance of novices: How undergraduate students contribute to engineering laboratory communities. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, 31, 145-162. ABSWylie, C.D. (2021).
Who should do data ethics? Patterns, 1 (1). ABSWylie, C.D. (2020).
Glass-boxing science: Laboratory work on display in museums. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 45(4), 618-635. ABSWylie, C.D. (2020).
Socialization through stories of disaster in engineering laboratories. Social Studies of Science, 49 (6), 817-838. ABSWylie, C.D. (2019).
Beyond technological literacy: Open data as active democratic engagement? Digital Culture and Society, 4 (2), 153-177. ABSWylie, C.D., Neeley, K.A., and S.M. Ferguson. (2019).
Art for institutional change: Legitimizing women in STEM through visibility. The ADVANCE Journal, 1 (1). ABSFraser, G., Uffman, C., Wylie, C.D., and D. Weller. (2019).
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). ABSWylie, C.D. (2019).
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. ABSWylie, C.D. (2019).
Twenty Questions About Design Behavior for Sustainability. Report of the International Expert Panel on Behavioral Science for Design. Nature Sustainability. ABSCo-author. (2019).
Overcoming the underdetermination of specimens. Biology & Philosophy, 34:24. ABSWylie, C.D. (2019).
The plurality of assumptions about fossils and time. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 41:21. ABSWylie, C.D. (2019).
Graduate/undergraduate partnerships (GradUP): How graduate and undergraduate students learn research skills together. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings. ABSWylie, C.D., Kim, F., Linville, I., and A. Campo. (2019).
In search of integration: Mapping conceptual efforts to apply STS to engineering education. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings. ABSNeeley, K.A., Wylie, C.D., and B. Seabrook. (2019).
"I just love research": Beliefs about what makes researchers successful. Social Epistemology, 32(4), 262-271. ABSWylie, C.D. (2018).
Trust in technicians in paleontology laboratories. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 43(2), 324-348. ABSWylie, C. D. (2018).
Learning in Laboratories: How Undergraduates Participate in Engineering Research. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings. ABSWylie, C. D., and M. E. Gorman. (2018).
Dimensions of Diversity in Engineering: What We Can Learn from STS. American Society for Engineering Education Conference Proceedings. ABSOdumosu, T.B., Ferguson, S., Foley, R., Neeley, K.A., Wylie, C.D., Ku, T., and R.W. Berne. (2018).
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. ABSWylie, C. D., Neeley, K. A., and T. B. Odumosu (2017).
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 ABSWylie, C. D. (2016).
Learning out loud (LOL): How comics can develop the communication and critical thinking abilities of engineering students. American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceedings. ABSWylie, C. D., and K. A. Neeley (2016).
“The artist’s piece is already in the stone”: Constructing creativity in paleontology laboratories. Social Studies of Science, 45 (1), 31-55. ABSWylie, C. D. (2015).
Teaching nature study on the blackboard in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. Archives of Natural History, 39 (1), 59-76. ABSWylie, C. D. (2012).
Teaching manuals and the blackboard: Accessing historical classroom practices. History of Education, 41 (2), 257-272. ABSWylie, C. D. (2012).
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. ABSWylie, C. D. (2010).
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 ABSWylie, C. D. (2009).
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.
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.