Date and Time
April 21, 2011
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Availability
Open to the public
No RSVP required

John Downer received his MA/MPhil in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University, his MA in Sociology from the University of Edinburgh, and his doctorate in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. His dissertation was on "The Burden of Proof: Regulating Ultra-High Reliability in Civil Aviation." Downer then worked at the London School of Economics' Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR), where he began re-working his dissertation for publication as a book titled "Black Box/Check Box: Assessing Critical Technologies" (forthcoming from MIT Press's Inside Technology series). Downer brings the sociology of knowledge to bear on discourses about technology policy and governance, taking insights from a close empirical study of technological knowledge-production-the US Federal Aviation Administration's assessment of new aircraft designs-and drawing out implications for broader questions about risk and governance in a world of pacemakers and nuclear power-stations. At CISAC, Downer is exploring the sociology and epistemology of failure and its implications for the governance of nuclear technologies.