About Us

Scope

Technology Science is a refereed online publication forum. Technology Science was formed because of a perception by the editors that no forum existed in which academic papers exploring the benefits and adverse consequences of social, political, organizational and personal aspects of technology were rapidly published, a condition the editors deemed necessary to encourage robust understanding about ways to harmonize technology and society.

The term "technology science" refers to the scientific study of technology's relationship to humankind. It is the study of naturally-occurring phenomena between uses of technologies and businesses, individuals, organizations, and societies. Studying technology science seems critical to navigating a future with fewer disruptions to technology investments, better informed policy decisions, and less unwanted erosion of societal norms.

The low cost and ubiquity of technology has resulted in unparalleled opportunities to violate, exploit, redefine, protect and enhance long-standing historical norms in all aspects of daily life. The rate at which new developments are forthcoming and adopted seems to outpace the ability of public interest to understand and affect possible outcomes. Published research, which ought to inform policy and regulatory discussions, has not been able to keep pace either. In part this occurs because research is time-consuming, but also because delays in ordinary print publication can exceed early opportunities to shape an issue. The fact that no publication forum exists for academic work on technology science also means that researchers in disparate application areas who encounter the same foundational problems have no effective way to share their insights, and the search for commonality among such problem is inhibited. Technology Science was established to alleviate these difficulties.

In general, it is useful to view issues in technology science as a competition between benefits of technologies and adverse, often unforeseen, consequences. For example, a video surveillance camera, despite its possible effect of enhancing security, is nonetheless viewed as a privacy-invading technology that may change historical social norms. A chip in the camera that de-identifies or encrypts human faces may address the unwanted consequence. The question whether such a chip can be built and whether it can perform its job effectively is a problem in technology science.

Today, there is a common false belief that in order for society to reap the benefits of new technologies, society must choose between innovative benefits or historical protections from harms. How can society enjoy new benefits without harms? Sometimes technology should bend to protect historical norms. Other times, historical norms need to evolve. Who decides? What should the decision be? The primary purpose of Technology Science is to promote these important investigations.

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

Latanya Sweeney, Harvard University

Managing Editor

Ji Su Yoo, Harvard University

Senior Editors

Robert Gellman

Rosalind Reid

Editorial Board

Hal Abelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

David Abrams, JD

Alessandro Acquisti, Carnegie Mellon University

Ross Anderson, University of Cambridge UK

Annie Anton, Georgia Institute of Technology

Solon Barocas, Cornell University

Masooda Bashir, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Alvaro Bedoya, Georgetown University

Danah Boyd, Data and Society Research Institute

Travis Breaux, Carnegie Mellon University

NaLette Brodnax, Georgetown University

Cheryl Brown, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Ryan Calo, University of Washington

L Jean Camp, Indiana University

Julie Cohen, Georgetown University

Susan Crawford, Harvard University

Pam Dixon, World Privacy Forum

Benjamin Edelman, Harvard University

Batya Friedman, University of Washington

Urs Gasser, Harvard University

Nathaniel Good, University of California Berkeley

Jens Grossklags, Pennsylvania State University

Raquel Hill, Indiana University

Lance Hoffman, George Washington University

Anna Lauren Hoffmann, University of California Berkeley

Chris Hoofnagle, University of California Berkeley

Deborah Hurley, Brown University

Sarah Igo, Vanderbilt University

Shelia Jasanoff, Harvard University

Xiaoqian Jiang, University of California San Diego

Murat Kantarcioglu, University of Texas at Dallas

Ian Kerr, University of Ottawa

Michael Luca, Harvard Business School

Colin Maclay, University of Southern California

Tadayoshi Kohno, University of Washington

Bradley Malin, Vanderbilt University

Andrea Matwyshyn, Northeastern University

Panagiotis Metaxas, Wellesley College

Darakhshan Mir, Bucknell University

Pablo Garcia Molina, Georgetown University

Tyler Moore, Southern Methodist University

Deirdre Mulligan, University of California Berkeley

Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University

Helen Nissenbaum, New York University

Frank Pasquale, University of Maryland

Sandy Pentland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stephanie Perrin, University of Toronto

Priscilla Regan, George Mason University

Sean Smith, Dartmouth College

Eugene Spafford, Purdue University

James Waldo, Harvard University

Danny Weitzner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stephen Wicker, Cornell University

Christopher Yoo, University of Pennsylvania

Jinyan Zang, Harvard University

Ethan Zuckerman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisory Board

Stephen Ansolabehere, Harvard University

Mercè Crosas, Harvard University

Lance Hoffman, George Washington University

Gary King, Harvard University

Edith Ramirez, formerly Chair of the Federal Trade Commission

Webmaster Editor

Pascal Delpe-Brice, Harvard University