Curriculum Vitae

Cyrus C.M. Mody

Employment:

Assistant Professor, Department of History, Rice University, 2007-

Program Manager, Nanotechnology and Innovation Studies, Center for Contemporary History and Policy, Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005-2007

Degrees:

Ph.D., Cornell University, in Science and Technology Studies, August 2004

M.A., Cornell University, in Science and Technology Studies, January 2001

A.B., Harvard University, (magna cum laude) in Engineering Sciences, June 1997

Dissertation Title: “Crafting the Tools of Knowledge: The Invention, Spread, and Commercialization of Probe Microscopy, 1960-2000”

Book: contract with MIT Press to write Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy and the Path to Nanotechnology for Inside Technology series

Fellowships and awards:

Fellow, Center for Interdisciplinary Research group “Science in the Context of Application,” Universität Bielefeld, in residence June-July 2007

Gordon Cain Fellowship in Technology, Policy, and Entrepreneurship, Chemical Heritage Foundation, in residence September 2004-June 2005

Hacker/Mullins Prize for best graduate student paper, American Sociological Association section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology, awarded August 2003

Sloan Foundation/National Bureau of Economic Research, Science and Engineering Workforce Project fellowship, awarded January 2003

Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation Fellowship, National Museum of American History, in residence June-August 2002

Chemical Heritage Foundation travel grant, awarded April 2002

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Electrical History Fellowship, awarded April 2001

National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant number SES 0094582, awarded December 2000

Mullins Prize for best graduate student paper, Society for Social Studies of Science, awarded September 2000

American Institute of Physics grant-in-aid for dissertation research, awarded August 2000

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, awarded April 1997

Current projects:

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Conferences and the Emergence of Nanoscience,” in Social Life of Nanotechnologies, ed. Barbara Herr Harthorn and John Mohr ([possibly] Oxford: Oxford University Press, invited to contribute).

Cyrus C.M. Mody and Hyungsub Choi, “From Materials Science to Nanotechnology: Institutions, Communities, and Disciplines at Cornell University, 1960-2000,” [probably for] Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences.

Andrew J. Nelson and Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Soothing the Savage Student: Music Meets Engineering at Vietnam-Era Stanford,” Osiris (invited to contribute to special issue on Music in the Laboratory – proposal under review).

Sonali K. Shah and Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Innovation, Social Structure and the Creation of New Industries,” [probably for] Organization Science.

Peer-reviewed journal articles:

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Conversions: Sound and Sight, Military and Civilian,” in Sound Studies Handbook: New Directions, ed. Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld (Oxford: Oxford University Press, submitted).

Cyrus C.M. Mody and Michael Lynch, “Test Objects and Other Epistemic Things: A History of a Nanoscale Object,” British Journal for the History of Science (accepted).

Hyungsub Choi and Cyrus C.M. Mody, “The Long History of Molecular Electronics: Microelectronics Origins of Nanotechnology,” Social Studies of Science 39.1 (2009): 11-50.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “The Larger World of Nano,” Physics Today 61.10 (2008): 38-44.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Corporations, Universities, and Instrumental Communities: Commercializing Probe Microscopy, 1981-1996,” Technology and Culture 47 (2006): 56-80.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “The Sounds of Science: Listening to Laboratory Practice,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 30 (2005): 175-198.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Small, But Determined: Technological Determinism in Nanoscience,” Hyle/Techne (special joint issue on nanotechnology) 10 (2004): 99-128 [reprinted in Joachim Schummer and Davis Baird, Nanotechnology Challenges: Implications for Philosophy, Ethics, and Society (New Jersey: World Scientific, 2006): 95-130].

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “A Little Dirt Never Hurt Anyone: Knowledge-Making and Contamination in Materials Science,” Social Studies of Science 31 (2001): 7-36 [reprinted in Susan Silbey, Law and Science, volume II (Burlington: Ashgate, 2008): 305-334].

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “‘A New Way of Flying’: Différance, Rhetoric, and the Autogiro in Interwar Aviation,” Social Studies of Science 30 (2000): 513-543.

Edited volume contributions:

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Instruments of Commerce and Knowledge: Probe Microscopy, 1980-2000,” in Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment, ed. Richard Freeman and Daniel Goroff (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009): 291-319.

Cyrus C.M. Mody and David Kaiser, “Scientific Training and the Creation of Scientific Knowledge,” in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, ed. Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman, 3^rd edition (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008): 377-402.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Short-Term Implications of Convergence for Scientific and Engineering Disciplines,” in Nanotechnology: Societal Implications II – Individual Perspectives, ed. Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006): 161-164.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Instruments in Training: The Growth of American Probe Microscopy in the 1980s,” in Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Producing Physical Scientists, 1800-2000, ed. David Kaiser (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005): 185-216.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “How Probe Microscopists Became Nanotechnologists,” in Discovering the Nanoscale, ed. Davis Baird, Alfred Nordmann, and Joachim Schummer (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004): 119-133.

White papers

Hyungsub Choi, Sarah Kaplan, Cyrus C.M. Mody, and Jody Roberts, Setting an Agenda for the Social Studies of Nanotechnology [Chemical Heritage Foundation Gore Innovation Case Studies Program/William and Phyllis Mack Center for Technological Innovation] (Philadelphia: Wharton School, 2008).

Cyrus Mody, Research Frontiers for the Chemical Industrial: Report on the Third Annual SCI-CHF Innovation Day Warren G. Schlinger Symposium [Center for Contemporary History and Policy White Paper Series] (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2007).

Cyrus Mody and Arthur Daemmrich, Research Frontiers for the Chemical Industrial: Report on the Second Annual SCI-CHF Innovation Day Warren G. Schlinger Symposium [Center for Contemporary History and Policy White Paper Series] (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2006).

Arthur Daemmrich and Cyrus Mody, Innovation Frontiers in Industrial Chemistry: Report on the First Annual SCI-CHF Innovation Day Warren G. Schlinger Symposium [Center for Contemporary History and Policy White Paper Series] (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005).

Reviews

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Review of Fermilab: Physics, the Frontier, and Megascience by Lillian Hoddeson, Adrienne W. Kolb, and Catherine Westfall,” Technology and Culture (forthcoming).

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the Nuclear Reactor, the Computer, Ham Radio, and Recombinant DNA,” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 38.3 (2008): 451-461.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Review of Managing Path-Breaking Innovations: CERN-ATLAS, Airbus, and Stem Cell Research by Shantha Liyanage, Rüdiger Wink, and Markus Nordberg,” Technology and Culture 49 (2008): 514-515.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Review of Technology, Institutions, and Economic Growth by Richard R. Nelson,” Technology and Culture. 47 (2006): 817-819.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Review of Aircraft Stories: Decentering the Object in Technoscience by John Law,” Contemporary Sociology 33 (2004): 116-117.

Miscellanea

Cyrus C.M. Mody, entries on “Atomic Force Microscopy,” “Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology,” “Electron Microscopy,” “Exotic Microscopies,” “IBM,” “International Council on Nanotechnology,” “Interdisciplinary Research Centers,” “Optical Microscopy,” “Scanning Probe Microscopy,” “Scanning Tunneling Microscopy,” and “Timeline of Nanotechnology,” Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society, ed. David Guston and J. Geoffrey Golson (London: Sage, accepted).

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Introduction [to special issue on the history of nanotechnology],” Perspectives on Science 17.2 (2009): 111-122.

Cyrus Mody and W. Patrick McCray, “Big Whig History and Nano Narratives: Effective Innovation Policy Needs the Historical Dimension,” Science Progress (http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/04/big-whig-history-and-nano-narratives/), April 6, 2009.

Cyrus Mody, “Buckyball and Carbon Nanotubes,” in Molecules That Matter [exhibit catalog], ed. Raymond J. Giguere (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2008): 159-176.

Cyrus Mody, Patrick McCray, and Jody Roberts, “Debating Nanoethics” [invited letter to the editor], The New Atlantis 17 (2007): 5-8.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Nano Pop,” Chemical Heritage 25.4 (2007): 45.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Garden of Nanotech: A Role for the Social Sciences and Humanities in Nanotechnology,” Chemical Heritage 25.3 (2007): 38-39.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Chemistry, Microscopy, and the Nanoworld,” Chemical Heritage 24.3 (2006): 14-19.

Cyrus C.M. Mody, “Nanotechnology and the Modern University,” Practicing Anthropology [special issue on nanotechnology] 28.2 (2006): 23-27.

Invited talks:

“Microscience/technology and Vietnam-Era Protest at Stanford” (Austin: Microelectronics Research Center talk, October 12, 2009).

“The Long Arm of Moore’s Law: The Microelectronics Industry and Nanotechnology” (Stockholm, Sweden: KTH Departments of Industrial Management and History of Science and Technology joint seminar, October 16, 2008).

“Between Success and Scandal: Visionary Scientists and Molecular Electronics” (Göteborg, Sweden: Göteborg University Science and Technology Studies Section seminar, October 14, 2008).

“Institutions as Stepping Stones: Rick Smalley and the Commercialization of Nanotubes” (Göteborg, Sweden: Chalmers Institute of Technology Nanoscience seminar, October 13, 2008).

“Some Early Historical Observations on the Commercialization of Nanotubes” (Washington, DC: US-France Young Engineering Scientists Symposium ’08, July 8, 2008).

With Hyungsub Choi (Mody presenting), “Molecular Electronics and the Microelectronics Origins of Nanotechnology,” (Tempe, Ariz.: Nano and Giga Challenges in Electronics and Photonics Symposium, March 16, 2007).

“Building a Probe Microscopy Community” (Chicago: Pittsburgh Conference, 18^th Annual James Waters Symposium Recognizing Pioneers in the Development of Analytical Instrumentation, February 26, 2007).

“Molecular Electronics in the Longue Durée: Microelectronics, Futurism, and Nanotechnology” (Houston: Rice University Department of History, February 12, 2007).

“Some Thoughts on Why History Matters in Understanding the Social Issues of Nanotechnology and Other Converging Technologies” (Madrid: Making the CTEKS workshop, Spanish National Research Council, February 6, 2007).

“The Long Arm of Moore’s Law” (Amherst, Mass.: Amherst College Law and Science Seminar, November 27, 2006).

“Molecular Electronics in the Longue Durée” (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Department of History and Sociology of Science, November 13, 2006).

“Constituent Communities and the Creation of Nanotechnology” (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society, February 27, 2006).

“Commercializing Probe Microscopy” (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Department of Anthropology, October 24, 2005).

“Commercializing Probe Microscopy” (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research Science & Engineering Workforce Project Workshop, October 20, 2005).

“Instrumental Communities and the Commercialization of Knowledge” (Tempe: Arizona State University Consortium on Science, Policy, and Outcomes, January 31, 2005).

“On Becoming a Nanoscientist: Shifting Identities in the Probe Microscopy Community” (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Lyman Briggs School, February 18, 2004).

“On Becoming a Nanoscientist: Shifting Identities in the Probe Microscopy Community” (Blacksburg, Va.: Virginia Tech Department of Science and Technology in Society, January 28, 2004).

“From Replication to Routinization: Putting Probe Microscopy to Work” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Department of History of Science, November 25, 2003).

“On Becoming a Nanoscientist: Shifting Identities in the Probe Microscopy Community” (San Diego: University of California at San Diego Department of Sociology, November 13, 2003).

Other Presentations:

“Conversions: Sound to Picture, Military to Civilian” (Pittsburgh: annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, October 16, 2009).

With Sonali Shah (Shah presenting), “Innovation, Social Structure and the Creation of New Industries: User Communities as Paths from Innovation to Industry” (Seattle: West Coast Research Symposium, September 11, 2009).

“Institutions as Stepping Stones: Rick Smalley and the Commercialization of Nanotubes” (Seattle: Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies meeting, September 9, 2009).

With Sonali Shah (Shah presenting), “Innovation, Social Structure and the Creation of New Industries: User Communities as Paths from Innovation to Industry,” (Houston: Instruments in Manufacturing workshop, June 18, 2009).

“Institutions as Stepping Stones: Rick Smalley and the Commercialization of Nanotubes” (Houston: Instruments in Manufacturing workshop, June 18, 2009).

With Michael Lynch (Lynch presenting), “From Dr. Goring to Nanotechnology: Test Objects as Reflexive Instruments” (Columbia, SC: Images of the Nanoscale: From Creation to Consumption workshop, October 27, 2007).

“Crazy or Brilliant or … ?: Molecular Electronics and the Interpretive Flexibility of Personality,” (Washington, DC: Society for the History of Technology annual meeting, October 19, 2007).

“Conferences, Institutions, and Nanotechnology” (Bielefeld: ZiF workshop on Institutional Fragmentation of Science, June 18, 2007).

With Hyungsub Choi (Mody and Choi presenting), “Molecular Electronics in the Longue Durée: The Microelectronics Origins of Nanotechnology” (Philadelphia: Wharton-CHF Symposium on the Social Studies of Nanotechnology, June 7, 2007).

“Conferences and the Development of Nanotechnology: Two Case Studies” (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation Brown Bag Lunch, May 8, 2007).

“Conferences, Community, and Nanotechnology: From Birth to Rebirth” (Vancouver: Society for Social Studies of Science annual meeting, November 4, 2006).

With Michael Lynch (Mody presenting), “Test Objects and the Materials of Community” (Minneapolis: Society for the History of Technology annual meeting, November 4, 2005).

“Nanotechnology and the Modern University” (Pasadena: Society for Social Studies of Science annual meeting, October 21, 2005).

“Instrumental Communities and the Commercialization of Knowledge” (Philadelphia: American Sociological Association annual meeting, August 15, 2005).

“Universities, Corporations, and Instruments: Commercializing Probe Microscopy” (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation Brown Bag Lunch, February 23, 2005).

“The History of the AFM” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Panel Discussion on Social and Ethical Issues in Nanoscience and Engineering: What Are They?, National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network/Cornell Nanofabrication Facility, April 8, 2004).

“Intervening Technology, Representing Technique: Probe Microscopy and the Art of the Nanoworld” (Columbia, S.C.: Conference on Imaging and Imagining the Nanoscale, March 4, 2004).

“Studying from the Middle: Following Mediators into the Laboratory” (Berkeley, Cal.: Workshop on Studying Up: The Problems and Prospects of Multi-Sited Ethnography, February 3, 2004).

“Builders, Runners, Users: Adaptations to Commercialization in the Probe Microscopy Community” (Atlanta: Society for Social Studies of Science meeting, October 16, 2003).

“Probe Microscopists at Work and Play: The Growth of American STM and AFM in the 1980s” (Atlanta: American Sociological Association annual meeting, August 16, 2003).

“From the Topografiner to the STM to the AFM: What probe microscopy can tell us about nanoscience instrumentation” (Columbia, S.C.: Discovering the Nanoscale conference, March 21, 2003).

“Pedagogy and Probe Microscopy: Building Instruments and Instrumentalists” (Milwaukee: Society for Social Studies of Science conference, November 8, 2002).

“What Does an Existence Proof Prove?: Surface Science and the Topografiner” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Science Studies Reading Group, October 28, 2002)

“Scanned Probes and Surface Science: Crafting Communities and Instruments in the ‘80s and ‘90s” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Science Studies Reading Group, February 4, 2002)

“Probe Microscopists at Work and at Play: The Growth of American STM in the 1980s” (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT workshop on Training Scientists, Crafting Science: Putting Pedagogy on the Map for Science Studies, January 25, 2002).

“The Microscopist’s Apprentice: Managing Diversity in Scanning Probe Microscopy” (Cambridge, Mass.: Society for Social Studies of Science conference, November 3, 2001).

“Instruments of/and Noise: Hearing and Laboratory Practice” (Vienna, Austria: Society for Social Studies of Science conference, September 28, 2000).

“Tending and Attending: Using, Reading, and Listening to Laboratory Artifacts” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell S&TS Workshop on The Significance of Noise, April 8, 2000).

“Cleanliness is next to . . . ? Purity and Epistemology among Materials Scientists” (San Diego: Society for Social Studies of Science conference, October 30, 1999).

“Jakobson's Deep Impact: A Jakobsonian Reading of the Alvarez Extinction Paper” (Cambridge, Mass.: Conference on The Problem of Evidence, Center for Literary and Cultural Studies, Harvard University, May 14, 1999).

“Failed (Auto)Revolution: Ideology, Invention, and the Autogiro” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Science Studies Reading Group, March 28, 1998).

Interviews and news articles:

DuBois, Lisa A., “Uncle Sam: Scientist,” and Bill Snyder, “Canary in the Research Lab,” Lens, Winter 2009: 4-9 and 12-16.

Stark, Jessica, “From the Titanic to the Betamax: Interdisciplinary Engineering and Humanities Course Investigates Disasters,” Rice News, January 30, 2009.

KTRU News, (October 19, 2008), interview with Carina Baskett.

“Nanotechnology: Where Did It Come From? What Is It For?” (June 25-27, 2007), interview with Benjamin Cohen, Science Blogs – The World’s Fair

Chen, Laurel, “Mody addresses the politics and the science of silicon chip technologies,” The Amherst Student, December 11, 2006.

Science and Society podcast, (July 30, 2006), interview with David Lemberg.

Mukhopadhyay, Neil, “Panel discusses ethics in science: Researchers explore issues in nanotechnology,” The Cornell Daily Sun, April 12, 2004.

Professional service:

Contributing Editor, Technology and Culture

Member, Society for Social Studies of Science, American Sociological Association, Society for the History of Technology

Reviewer, Social Studies of Science, Hyle, Techne, Journal of Biomedical Discovery and Collaboration, Technology & Culture, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Department of Energy, Leonardo, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook

Conferences organized:

(with Ann Johnson) Instruments in Manufacturing workshop (Houston, Tex.: Rice University, June 17-18, 2009) [supported by NSF and Rice Humanities Research Center].

(with Sarah Kaplan) Joint Wharton-CHF Symposium on Social Studies of Nanotechnology (Philadelphia, Penna.: Wharton School and Chemical Heritage Foundation, June 7-8, 2007) [referenced in Ivan Amato, “Pacing Nanotechnology,” Chemical & Engineering News 85.28 (July 9, 2007): 3].

(with Chi Chan and Arthur Daemmrich) Third Annual CHF-SCI Innovation Day and Schlinger Symposium (Philadelphia, Penna.: Chemical Heritage Foundation, September 20-21, 2006).

(with Maria Alvarez and Arthur Daemmrich) Second Annual CHF-SCI Innovation Day and Schlinger Symposium (Philadelphia, Penna.: Chemical Heritage Foundation, September 6-7, 2006).

Nano Before There Was Nano: Historical Perspectives on the Constituent Communities of Nanotechnology (Philadelphia, Penna.: Chemical Heritage Foundation, March 18-19, 2005) [supported by Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation].

The Significance of Noise (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Science and Technology Studies, April 8-9).

Funding:

Funded as part of Interdisciplinary Research Group 1 of the UC Santa Barbara Center for Nanotechnology in Society, NSF Grant SES 0531184.

Head of three-person Rice-UCSB research team awarded Social and Ethical Issues funding through National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, NSF Grant ECCS 0335765.

Head of three-person Rice-UCSB research team conducting historical/ethnographic project for Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, NSF Grant EEC 0647452

Courses:

History 418 “Science, Technology, and the Cold War,” Spring 2008, Rice University

History 417 “Perspectives on Silicon Valley,” Fall 2008, Rice University

History 237/Chemistry 235/Anthropology 235 “Nanotechnology: Content and Context” (with Prof. Kristen Kulinowski), Fall 2007/8/9, Rice University

History/Electrical and Computer Engineering 234 “Technological Disasters,” (with Prof. Kevin Kelly), Spring 2009, Rice University

History 233 “Science in the Modern World,” Fall 2007/Spring 2009/Fall 2009, Rice University

University service:

Rice Center for Engineering Leadership internal advisory committee, F09

Rice Undergraduate Scholars Program, co-instructor (with Lora Wildenthal and Dan Wagner), S09

History department undergraduate committee, F08/S09/F09

First-year common reading committee, S08/F08/S09/F09

Humanities Research Center, Cultural Studies of Science and Technology coordinator, F08/F09

History department graduate committee, F07/S08

Last updated November 10, 2009