Hurray for Chris Henke!!
Professor Chris Henke (and co-author Benjamin Sims)’s article “Repairing credibility: Repositioning nuclear weapons knowledge after the Cold War,” in the Social Studies of Science, vol. 42, no. 3, June 2012, pp. 324-347 was selected as a winner of the 2014 David Edge Prize awarded by the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This prize is awarded annually for the best article in the area of science and technology studies by the 4S. Yuko Fujigaki, one of the members of 4S and the 2014 David Edge Prize committee informed Chris and Ben of this honor at the annual meeting in February. That paper also won the ASA SKAT paper prize a few years back.
Read about the award here on the 4S website.
Edge committee members: Yuko Fujigaki (U Tokyo, Japan) and Nelly Oudshoorn (U Twente, The Netherlands) made the presentation stating: The 4S prize committee received 23 papers for the selection process, “three from self-nomination and 20 papers from editors of Social Studies of Science, Science, Technology, and Human Values, East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, Social Epistemology, Theory, Culture, and Society, Public Understanding of Science, Geoforum, BioSocieties, Scandinavian Journal of Management.”
“This paper deals with the “maintenance” of the credibility of US nuclear weapons after the Cold War and examines how the weapon scientists have avoided a crisis of credibility, showing that their knowledge is deeply embedded in the design and testing of these weapons. This paper highlights an area that most STS papers have largely neglected, and opens up the new research direction on sociotechnical repair. Therefore, this paper deserves the award.”
Society for Social Studies of Science is the oldest and largest scholarly association devoted to understanding science and technology. 4S exists to facilitate communication across conventional boundaries that separate the disciplines and across national boundaries that separate scholars. 4S includes members from all over the world including:
- scholars in sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, political science, economics, and psychology
- areas of study that fall outside of the traditional academic disciplines such as feminist studies and cultural studies, as well as those addressing science and technology for the public
- studies of knowledge, policy, R&D, the development and use of specific technologies
- working scientists and engineers interested in the social aspects of their fields
- members of the public who have an interest in the way that science and technology affect their lives