Andrew Moisey, assistant professor of history of art and visual studies; Malte Ziewitz, assistant professor of science & technology studies and Tao Leigh Goffe, assistant professor of Africana studies and feminist, gender, & sexuality studies, have been chosen as new Milstein Faculty Fellows in the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity.
“These three fellows represent the astounding range and creativity of our faculty working at the intersection of innovation and the human experience,” said Austin Bunn, associate professor of performing and media arts and director of the Milstein Program on the Ithaca campus. “Their courses -— from the power of digital photography to “the circuitry of empire” to clinical investigations into the promises and pitfalls of data science itself -— will push the boundaries of traditional pedagogy and ask students to both make and interrogate the technology that suffuses our lives.”
Moisey investigates how photography became an art form that deals with philosophical problems. The hands-on course he will teach for Milstein students, which incorporates photography, image analysis and graphic design, is devoted to the practical understanding of conception, production, and innovation in the photographic image world. The goal of the course is to enrich students’ understanding of how to make images that solve practical social and scholarly problems in an impactful, immediate and public way.
Ziewitz studies the changing role of governance and regulation in, of and through digitally networked environments – the dynamics at work, the values at stake and the design options at hand. At Cornell, he directs the Due Process Clinic and is a house fellow at William Keeton House. For the Milstein Program, he will teach "Data Science and Society," a community-engaged class that is part of the college's Data Science Curriculum Initiative. Currently in its second year, the course focuses on a particular data-related problem, which students collectively explore in small teams, supported by a mix of lectures and discussions.
Along with being a professor, Goffe is also a writer and a DJ specializing in the narratives that emerge from histories of imperialism, migration and globalization. At the intersections of the environmental humanities and science and technology studies, her interdisciplinary research and practice examines the unfolding relationship between technology, the senses, memory and nature. Goffe is developing a course on archiving, DJ'ing and the digital bridges between technology and humanity. Her Faculty Fellowship will begin in 2022.
The Milstein Program, launched in 2017 with a generous gift from the Milstein Family Foundation, led by Howard P. Milstein ’73, Abby S. Milstein, and Michael M. Milstein ‘11, is a collaboration between the College of Arts & Sciences and Cornell Tech in New York City, and the first undergraduate link between the Ithaca and Roosevelt Island campuses.
Along with designing courses, faculty fellows also work on developing other new initiatives that explore topics at the intersection of technology and humanity, such as the new Tech Policy Lab, developed by outgoing faculty fellow Professor Sarah Kreps, which focuses on the politics of technology to examine how politics shapes the deployment of new technologies in ways that directly affect the lives of millions in the United States and around the globe.
Students in the Milstein Program spend their academic years on the Ithaca campus and two summers living and learning at Cornell Tech.
