Kristoffer Whitney Headshot

Kristoffer Whitney

Associate Professor, Science, Technology, and Society

Department of Science, Technology, and Society
College of Liberal Arts
kjwgla@rit.edu
585-475-4474
Office Location
EAS-2138

Kristoffer Whitney

Associate Professor, Science, Technology, and Society

Department of Science, Technology, and Society
College of Liberal Arts

Education

BS, Rochester Institute of Technology; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

Bio

Ph.D. History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania

M.A. History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania

Post Doctoral Fellow, Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Associate-at-Large, Center for Culture, History, & Environment, Nelson Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Winner of the 2016 David Edge Prize for the best article in the area of Science and Technology studies by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)

kjwgla@rit.edu
585-475-4474

Select Scholarship

Journal Paper
Whitney, Kristoffer and Kaitlin Stack Whitney. "Squished Bugs: Teaching and Learning Reflexivity in Ecology." Environmental Humanities 16. 1 (2024): 211–229. Web.
Whitney, Kristoffer. "Bird-Banding and the Environmental Humanities: Institutions, Intersubjectivities, and the Phenomenological Method of Margaret Morse Nice." Environmental Humanities 13. 1 (2021): 113-135. Web.
Whitney, Kaitlin Stack and Kristoffer Whitney. "Inaccessible media during the COVID-19 crisis intersects with the language deprivation crisis for young deaf children in the US." Journal of Children and Media 15. 1 (2021): 25-28. Print.
Whitney, Kristoffer. "Valuing Shorebirds: Bureaucracy, Natural History, and Expertise in North American Conservation." Journal of the History of Biology 53. 4 (2020): 631-652. Print.
Whitney, Kristoffer. "It’s About Time: Adaptive Resource Management, Environmental Governance, and Science Studies." Science, Technology & Human Values 44. 2 (2018): 263-290. Print.
Whitney, Kaitlin Stack and Kristoffer Whitney. "John Anthony Allan’s ‘Virtual Water’: Natural Resources Management in the Wake of Neoliberalism." Arcadia 11. (2018): N/A. Web.
Invited Article/Publication
Whitney, Kristoffer. "History of Wildlife Tracking Technologies." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. (2022). Web.
Whitney, Kristoffer and Sabrina McCormick. "Comparing West Nile Virus and COVID‐19." Sociology of Health & Illness. (2020). Web.
Whitney, Kristoffer. "Margaret Morse Nice thought like a song sparrow and changed how scientists understand animal behavior." The Conversation. (2019). Web.
External Scholarly Fellowships/National Review Committee
9/1/2021 -8/31/2022
     National Science Foundation
     Amount: $120,152
Book Chapter
Whitney, Kristoffer. "Design for Deaf Education: early history of the NTID." Making Disability Modern: Design Histories. Ed. Elizabeth E. Guffey and Bess Williamson. London, England: Bloomsbury, 2020. 143-158. Print.

Currently Teaching

STSO-140
Science, Technology, and Values
3 Credits
Science Technology and Values explores the concepts and effects of science and technology on society, and analyzes the relationship between science and technology, asking questions such as: How each has come to play a major role today, and how have science and technology affected and been affected by human values, despite longstanding assumptions that science and technology are value-free? Environmental aspects of science and technology will also be examined from interdisciplinary perspectives. Key themes include the practical and theoretical relationships between science, technology, and power.
STSO-240
Social Consequences of Technology
3 Credits
Technology has an impact on every aspect of our social lives. With each advance, unanticipated problems emerge, leading to complex debates about addressing the negative consequences. This course highlights the social, ethical, and humanistic challenges of assorted technologies, past and present. We will investigate how various technologies developed and compare the expected effects of the new technologies with the actual results.
STSO-421
Environmental Policy
3 Credits
Governments and organizations use a variety of tools, including laws and regulations, to take action on issues related to people and the environment. This course introduces students to environmental policies on numerous topics in a variety of institutions, contexts, and scales (such as local, state, federal, international). Students will examine how societal values inform the development, content, and impacts of environmental policies. Key topics include climate change, air and water pollution, and community sustainability.
STSO-425
Nature and Quantification
3 Credits
In this course, students will examine the ways in which “nature,” broadly conceived, has been quantified, standardized, and in many cases commodified in the modern West – often in the context of the natural sciences, government bureaucracies, capitalist markets, or some combination of the three. Reading and discussing broadly across history, science studies, anthropology, philosophy, and ecology, students will gain multidisciplinary perspectives on modern informational thinking, and develop analytical tools for assessing contemporary issues related to the quantified environment.

In the News

  • October 28, 2024

    Surf on a beach at sunset features a horseshoe crab upside down in the water and several others nearby.

    Turning tides for endotoxin testing

    Chemical and Engineering News speaks to Kristoffer Whitney, associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, about the changing landscape of endotoxin testing in the pharmaceutical industry, highlighting the potential shift away from using horseshoe crab blood toward animal-free alternatives due to new regulatory acceptance.

  • March 27, 2024

    a logo for Tracking the Planet podcast is shown on a tan background

    A Changing Climate

    Tracking the Planet podcast speaks to Kristoffer Whitney, associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, about animal movement based on climactic conditions and the health of ecosystems.

More News