:: education ::
September 1994 to August 2002: Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Ph. D. in History and Philosophy of Technology and Science. Secondary fields in the Anthropology of Science and American Studies.
June 1994: Master of Arts in American History, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
January 1980 to March 1983: Bachelor of Science, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
:: academic appointments ::
2008-Present: Associate Professor, University of Washington.
2007: Adjunct in Anthropology, University of Washington.
2005-2008: Assistant Professor in the Comparative History of Ideas Program and History, University of Washington.
2005-Present: Adjunct in Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario.
2004-2005: Visiting Assistant Professor for Communication and the Comparative History of Ideas Program at the University of Washington.
2003-2005: Cross-appointment in the Institute for Political Economy, Carleton University.
2003-2005: Appointment to Graduate Faculty in Environmental Studies, Carleton University.
July 2002-2005: Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario.
March-June1997, March 1998-June 2001: Visiting Lecturer, School of Communications, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
:: editorial duties ::
January 2003-present: Series Co-editor, In Vivo: Cultural Mediations of Biomedicine, University of Washington Press.
March 2000-January 2007: Co-editor of Humanities Net, H-SCI-MED-TECH distribution list.
January 2007-Present: Member of the Editorial Board of Humanities Net, H-SCI-MED-TECH distribution list.
February 2008-present: Advisory Board, Inflexions: A Journal for Research-Creation.
:: academic awards::
: research :
2008: Selected as Center for New Media and History NEH Fellowship Partner, Geore Mason University.
2008: Science Studies Network, Focused Research Cluster for the Science Studies Network, Simpson Center for the Humanities, Co-organized with Alison Wylie (Philosophy), Malia Fullerton (History and Ethics of Medicine) Celia Lowe (Anthropology), and Simon Werret (History)
2008: Alfred P. Sloan, Exploring and Collecting History Online Grant, Administered by the Center for New Media and History at George Mason University.
2007: Science Studies Network, A Proposal for a Cross-disciplinary Research Network and Colloqium, Simpson Center for the Humanities, Co-organized with Alison Wylie (Philosophy), Malia Fullerton (History and Ethics of Medicine) Celia Lowe (Anthropology), and Simon Werret (History).
2007: University of Washington Graduate School Research Award, subvention for book-legth manuscript publication.
2007: University of Washington Royalty Research Award, "Extended Development: Toward a Cultural History of Evolutionary and Developmental BIology."
2005: Partner for Professor Ann Anagnost’s (Anthropology) Associate Professor Research Initiative from the Simpson Center for Humanities, University of Washington, “Embodiments of Value.”
2005: Freimuth Award for Travel, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington.
2005: North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Education Enhancement Grant for the production of “Reimagining Biocommerce: Owning Body Parts and Information” (Co-Primary Investigator along with Robert Mitchell, English, Duke University and Helen Burgess, Digital Technology and Culture, Washington State University in Vancouver).
2004: Faculty Research Award for the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (Co-investigator, along with others including Primary Investigator, Michael Jemtrud, Architecture, Carleton University).
2000-2001: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center Award “Information and the Human Body” (along with Robert Mitchell, Comparative Literature, University of Washington).
1998-1999: Melvin and Joan Lane Graduate Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology.
1997 to 1998: Visiting Scholar, University of Washington.
1996-1997: Andrew P. Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, Stanford University.
1992-1996: History Department Fellowship, Stanford University.
1982 Student Research Award, The Evergreen State College Foundation.
: teaching and curriculum reform :
2005: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award “Animation in Theory and Practice” a class planned for Spring 2007 (along with Stephanie Andrews, Digital and Experimental Arts).
2005: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award "Becoming Strangers: Travel, Trust, and the Everyday" a class planned for Autumn Quarter 2005 (along with Brian Reed, English, University of Washington).
2005: Co-investigator, President’s Diversity Appraisal Implementation Fund, University of Washington, “Comparative Exploration of Diversity: Interdisciplinary Knowledges and Personal Engagements” (along with Jeannette Bushell, Amy Peloff, and Georgia Roberts, Comparative History of Ideas, University of Washington).
2005: Faculty for Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Ellen Garvens, Art, Ariana Russell, Art, and Brian Reed, English, University of Washington).
2004: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award "Eye and Mind: Art, Science, and Perception" a class planned for Winter Quarter 2005 (along with Elizabeth Rutledge, Medicine, University of Washington).
2004: Faculty for Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Washington (along with Kari Tupper, Women’s Studies and Comparative History of Ideas; and Claudia X. Valdes, Digital and Experimental Arts, University of Washington).
2002: Tools for Transformation "A Three Year Proposal for an Interdisciplinary Course on Science and Society" from University of Washington. (Co-investigator with Jeffrey Bonadio, Bioengineering; and Kari Tupper, Women’s Studies and the Comparative History of Ideas, University of Washington).
2001-2002: Walter Simpson Chapin Humanities Center, Danz Course Award "In Vivo: Traversing Artistic and Scientific Conceptions of Life" a class taught during Spring Quarter 2002 (along with Elizabeth Rutledge, Medicine, University of Washington, and Marta Lyall, Art, University of Washington).
:: professional affiliations ::
:: teaching honors ::
May 2004, one of five nominees for Outstanding Graduate Student Educator, Carleton University Graduate Student Association
May 2004, Carlton University Student Association Outstanding Educator Award
May 2003, Carleton University Student Association Outstanding Educator Award.
April 2000, Outstanding Educator Award Delta Upsilon Fraternity.
:: other academic work ::
2004: Faculty Sponsor for the Great Lakes Graduate Conference in Political Economy
2004: Faculty Sponsor for the Social Theory and Critical Discourses 2nd annual conference, Materialities Incorporated
Winter of 2002: Co-Founder (with Ronjon Paul Datta) of “Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group” originally at Carleton University now housed at Carleton University, Ottawa University, and York University
Spring 2000: Founded and administrated the "UW Gaming Group"
1999-2000: Faculty Sponsor for the University of Washington Chapter of Women in Communications
1999: Founder of University of Washington's "New Media Theory Group" now known as the "Digital Media Working Group."
1995-1996: Researcher and Consultant on “The History of Silicon Valley Project” at Stanford University. This project involved the creation of an online distributed database for documenting the history of Silicon Valley in its own medium.
Summer 1999: Digitization of 1852-4 Railroad Survey Maps through CARTAH at the University of Washington.
:: administrative experience ::
2001-2002: Co-Director (with Kevin Kawamoto) of the Digital Media Laboratory in the School of Communications, University of Washington.
Fall 1998-Summer 1999: Academic Adviser and International Programs Coordinator, Comparative History of Ideas Program, University of Washington.
:: publications ::
: books and other major projects :
Biofutures: Owning Body Parts and Information. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2008.
Coauthored with Robert E. Mitchell (English, Duke University) and Helen Burgess (Electronic Media and Culture, Washington State University in Vancouver). An interactive DVD-ROM from the Mariner 10 Series of multimedia publications.
The Emergence of Genetic Ratonality: Space, Time, and Information in American Biology 1870-1920. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.
Co-editor with Robert Mitchell, Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body (University of Washington Press, 2002).
Co-editor with Robert Mitchell, Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003).
: Refereed Articles and Book Chapters :
"'The Acme Novelty Library': Comicbooks, Repetition, and the Return of the New," co-authored with Robert Mitchell, accepted in Configurations.
"Biofeedback and Music: Listening as Experimental Practice," co-authored with Cludia X. Valdes, accepted for publication in Leonardo: Journal of Arts, Science, and Technology.
"The Poetics of Life: Luther Burbank, Horticultural Novelties, and the Space of Heredity" in Literature and Medicine, Vol. 26, no. 1, Spring 2007: 1-24.
“The Material Poiesis of Information” co-authored with Robert E. Mitchell in Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003).
“Bastard Birth: Middle Class Mores and the Rise of Genetic Rationality” in Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003).
"Harnessing Heredity in Gilded Age America: Middle Class Mores and Industrial Breeding in a Cultural Context", Journal of the History of Biology 2002 Spring;35(1):43-78.
: invited publications :
“Biofeedback in the Arts: Listening as Experimental Practice” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes). WWW publication of talk, includes streaming video. For Refresh!: First International Conference on the History of Media, Art, Science, and Technology, Banff New Media Institute. Streaming video available at:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/programs/archives/2005/refresh/lisiten.asp
Paper available at:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/programs/archives/2005/refresh/conference_docs.asp
“Electrophoresis” for the Oxford University Press Companion to Contemporary Science (Oxford University Press, 2003).
"Genomic Book of the Dead: A Manual for More Conscious Death Experiences in the Twenty First Century" in Genesis: Contemporary Art Explores Human Genetics (Henry Art Gallery, Online Exhibition Catalogue Found at http://www.gene-sis.net/new_essays.html, CD of exhibit released 2002).
“The unbearable depth of the surface: Lichtenstein’s landscapes” for the exhibition catalogue Shifting Ground: Transformed Views of the American Landscape created for the exhibition of the same name at The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle WA. (Henry Art Gallery, 2000).
“’The G Files’: Linking the ‘Selfish Gene’ and the ‘Thinking Reed’”. An essay commissioned for Stephen Jay Gould’s visit to Stanford University.
"The Creation of the Genetic Self and Its Implications for Biological Social Control." Stanford Humanities Review. Vol. 5, 1996, 81-100.
"Protein Sequencers," in Instruments of Science: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. by Robert Bud, Stephen Johnston, and Deborah Warner (Hamden, CT: Garland Publishing, 1998).
"Electrophoretic Apparatus," in Instruments of Science: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. by Robert Bud, Stephen Johnston, and Deborah Warner (Hamden, CT: Garland Publishing, 1998).
:: book reviews ::
Margaret Derry, Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Market Culture, 1800-1920 ( University of Toronto Press, 2006). For Agricultural History Review, Issue 55, No. 1, 146-147.
Invited response to book review of Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Co-authored with Robert Mitchell). Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, April 2005.
Invited response to book reviews of Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body (Co-authored with Robert Mtichell). Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, December 2003.
David E. Nye, Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies
(MIT Press, 1997). For History and Technology, vol. 16, 1999, 108-110.
:: papers presented ::
“The Gothic Spaces of the Butterfly’s Wing: The Supernatural Politics of Evo Devo,” Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina, November 2008.
Panel Participant for the Seattle Innovation Symposium, “Are Digital Natives Wired Differently”, University of Washington, Seattle, June 2008. “Animating Literacy”, for the Digital Literacy, Louise M Davies Forum at the University of San Francisco, May 2008.
“The Extended Development Project: An Interactive Online Database,” for Project Bamboo (humanities and arts computing), University of California at Berkeley, April 2008.
“The Emergence of Genetic Rationality”, invited talk for New Books in Print Seminar Series, sponsored by the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, April 8, 2008.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World,” (Co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes), Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Portland, Maine, November 2007.
“Biology beyond the fold: The temporal virtuosity of the animated gene,” accepted, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Portland Maine, November 2007.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World,” (Co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes), accepted as poster presentation, Re:Place, 2007: The Second International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, November 2007, Berlin.
“From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World,” (Co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes), accepted, Mutamorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic, November, 2007.
“Information Processing and the History of Genetics,” Invited talk for the seminar "The cultures of genetics: historical, philosophical and sociological perspectives” at the Ècole Normale Supérieur organized by Christophe Bonneuil, Jean Gayon, Michael Morange, and Jean-Paul Gaudillière. November 12, 2007, Paris, France.
“Unanticipated intimacies: Embracing the artwork of Patricia Piccinini”, invited lecture for the Frye Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibit “Hug: Recent Work by Patricia Piccinini,” Frye Art Museum, Oct 13, 2007.
“The Novelty of Life: Luther Burbank, Industrial Agriculture, and the Heredity of Wandering,” for “Why We Need AgrilCultural Studies Seminar” at the Cultural Studies Association, Portland, Oregon, April 2007.
”I Believe That Comic Book Heroes Walk the Earth’: Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Becomings in a Monstrous World,” Presented at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. New York, New York, November 2006.
“Embodying Information 1900/2000: Information Processing and the Human Body” invited presentation for The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Amsterdam, NL. Summer 2006.
“’The Acme Novelty Library’: Thinking past fidelity with the return of the new.” Presented with Robert Mitchell), International Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Amsterdam, 2006.
“Reading Between the Panels: Using Comics to Understand How Entertainment Informs Us.” for Research Exposed! Presented by the Undergraduate Research Program at UW. Winter 2005.
“’Biofeedback and the Arts’: Listening as Experimental Practice,” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes) for the Annual Conference of the Society for Science, Literature, and the Arts, University of Chicago, October, 2005.
“’Biofeedback and the Arts’: Listening as Experimental Practice,” (co-authored with Claudia X. Valdes) for Refresh!: First International Conference on the History of Media, Art, Science, and Technology, Banff New Media Institute, September 2005.
Panel Chair, “History, Religion, and the Production of Space: Discovering Meaning and Agency Throughout the Globe,” for The Eighth Annual University of Washington Undergraduate Research Symposium, University of Washington, May 2005.
Panel Participant, “Visual Knowledge” for the Roundtable for Practical Pedagogy, University of Washington, May 2005.
“’Dark Genesis’: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Becomings in a Monstrous World, or How I Became Elemental and Lived to Tell the Tale” for Comic Book Cultures: A Colloquium, Duke University, April 2005.
“Art and the Biology of the Patriot Act” for Art, Law, and the Patriot Act, University at Buffalo, April 2005.
“Embodying Information 1900/2000: Information Processing and Genetic Knowledge at the Turn of Two Centuries.” University of Washington, February 2005.
Panel Participant, “Reading Between the Frames: Exciting New Directions in Comic Book Scholarship,” for Comparative History of Ideas Salon, University of Washington, February 2005.
“Reading Between the Panels: New Research in Comic Books” for Research Exposed! Presented by the Undergraduate Research Program at UW. Winter 2004.
“From Wandering to Processing: From the Space-time of Natural History to the Space and Time of Classical Genetics” and Chair of Genes and Society panel, The Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Winnipeg, July 2004.
Panel Chair, “Sociology of the Body” for Musings and Scribblings: Carleton University Sociology and Anthropology Graduate Student Conference, Ottawa, May 2004.
“The ‘Acme Novelty Library’: Using Comics to Understand the Affective-Phenomenological Domain of Media,” for Uncensoring Mediamorphis Conference, sponsored by the Ottawa Public Interest Group, Ottawa May 2004.
The Poetics of Wandering and the Hybrid Body,” at Materialities Incorporated: The 2nd Annual Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group Conference, Ottawa May 2004.
"From the Poetics of Wandering to the Poetics of Processing: The Space and Time of Classical Genetics," Science and Literature Society, Austin 2003.
"Thought from the Outside: Using Animation to Think Beyond Norms," Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group, Carleton University, September 2003.
"Comics and Sequence," Washington State University in Vancouver, 2003.
"The Genomic Book of the Dead: Discourse Networks of Death in the Post-Genomic Era," Social Theory and Critical Discourses Working Group, Carleton University, 2003.
"Animating Your Genome," Science and Literature Society, Pasadena 2002.
Roundtable discussion of “Interdisciplinary Collaborations in the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences , and Literature Society, Pasadena 2002.
"The Genomic Book of the Dead: A Manual for More Conscious Death Experiences in the 21st Century" Religion and Genomics Conference, Duke University, 2002.
"The Genomic Book of the Dead: Death, Life, and Representation in the 21st Century," Second European Conference of the International Society for Literature and Science, May 2002.
Panel participant, "Paradigms Lost and Found: The Implications of the Human
Genome Project" Sponsored by the Henry Art Gallery and the Animating Democracy Initiative, April 2002.
"Your Animated Future: Phenomenology, Comics, and Online Scholarship" Invited Speaker at Washington State University at Vancouver, March 2002.
“Human Embodiment 1900/2000” Georgia Tech University, February 2002.
"The World of Stephen Jay Gould" for the Seattle Arts and Lectures Series, October 2001.
Panelist discussing Homo Sapiens 1900 (Peter Cohen Director) at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, March 2001.
Invited Presentation at the Honors Brown Bag Lunch Series, "From Survivor to Blair Witch Project–The current prevalence of the 'reality effect' in popular culture,” November 2000.
“Materializing Nature: Landscape in a Consumer Culture” Henry Art Gallery, Seattle Washington, May 2000.
Panel Chair “Media Literacy and Shifting Contexts of Signification” for Writing Machines: Communication Technology and Literature, UW Comparative Literature Graduate student Conference, April 2000.
“Information and Democracy,” panel participant in Information Technology and Democracy: Seminars on the Information Age, Sponsored by the University of Washington School of Library and Information Science, invited for 22, January 2000 and 28, April 2000.
“The Emergent Structure of Cyberspace: Implications for Multi-Cultural Diversity” for the Curriculum Transformation Institute: Exploring Difference in Multicultural Classrooms, Sponsored by the University of Washington and Shoreline Community College, Summer 1999.
“Information Processing and the Rise of Genetic Reasoning,” Stanford University, Autumn 1998.
“The Phenomenology of the Cubby Hole: The Wooten Desk as Technology of Early Industrial Networks of Exchange,” Society for the History of Technology, Annual Conference, 1998 (Co-organizer of session on “Technology and Modernity”).
“Space and Speciation: Turn-of-the-Century Debates on the Origins of the Species,” Rice University, Spring 1998.
“Filing and Information Processing in Biological Thought” Sarah Lawrence College, Spring 1998.
“Harnessing Heredity in Gilded Age America: Rational Reproduction in a Cultural Context,” History of Science Society, Annual Conference, 1997.
“Harnessing Heredity: Rational Reproduction in Victorian America,” University of Washington History of Science Reading Group.
"Engineering Organisms, Disciplines, Institutions, and Epistemologies at the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford University," University of Washington History of Science Reading Group.
"A Horse is a Horse, (Unless of Course...): Horse Breeding, Eugenics, Education, Industrial Philanthropy, and Biological Determinism in Turn of the Century United States." Western Social Science Association, 37th Annual Conference, 1995.
"The Foals of Electioneer: Human Nature Limited by the Needs of Industrial Capitalism." Columbia History of Science Meeting, 1995.
"The Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford University: A Case Study in the Relationship of the Clinical and the Basic Sciences." West Coast History of Science Society, 1994.
"The Development of the Beckman Center for Molecular Genetics: A Case Study Investigating the Relationship of Departmental Problem Solving, Patronage, and Scientific Disciplines," Science, Technology, and Economics Workshop, Stanford University.
:: peer reviewd publications in the biological sciences ::
Kwok WW; Kovats S; Thurtle P; Nepom G.T., HLA-DQ Allelic Polymorphisms Constrain Patterns of Class II Heterodimer Formation. Journal of Immunology, Vol 150(6):2263-72, 1993.
Gaur, L.K., Heise, E.R., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., Conservation of the HLA-DQB2 Locus in Nonhuman Primates. Journal of Immunology, Vol. 149(7):2530, 1992.
Gaur, L.K., Heisse, E.R., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., Is DQß Functional among Non-Human Primates? In "Molecular Evolution of the Major-Histocompatibility."
J. Klein and D. Klein eds., Springer-Verlag, 1991.
Kwok, W.W., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., A Genetically Controlled Pairing Anomaly Between HLA-DQa and HLA-DQß Chains. Journal of Immunology Vol.143 No. 11 p3598, 1989.
Kwok, W.W., Schwartz, D., Nepom, B.S., Hock, R.A., Thurtle, P.S., Nepom, G.T., HLA-DQ Molecules Form a-ß Heterodimers of Mixed Allotype. Journal of Immunology, Vol.142 No.9 p3123, 1988.
:: courses taught ::
: while at the University of Washington :
HUM 207: Science and Its Critics, co taught with Maynard Olson (Genome Sciences and Medicine)
CHID 250: Biofutures
HUM 498: Fifth Annual Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities: Media and the Senses (seminar), co taught with Axel Roesler (Design), Carrie Bodle (Art), and Jentery Sayers (English)
CHID 490: CHID Research Seminar, "Love and Attraction"
HUM 204: The Role of Perspective in History, Science, and Design (Team Taught with Axel Roesler, Design, University of Washington
CHID 490: CHID Research Seminar, "The Politics of Memory"
HUM 203: The World in Motion: Animation in Theory and Practice (Team Taught with Stephanie Andrews, Digital and Experimental Arts, University of Washington
CHID 498: Animating Cultural Theory
CHID 270: Communication Matters: The Materiality of Communication Practices
HUM 102: Eye + Mind: Art, Science, and Perception
CHID 390: Interpretation of Texts and Culture
HUM 498: Third Annual Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities
“Trauma, Time, and Embodiment”
Humanities 200: In Vivo: Traversing Scientific and Artistic Observations on Life
(Team-taught with a Molecular Biologist, this class also includes an optional laboratory component)
CMU 200: Introduction to Mass Communication
CMU 302: The Cultural Impact of Information Technology
(Cross listed with the Comparative History of Ideas Program, CHID 370)
CMU 403: Visual Culture
CMU 418: The Cultural History of Communication Practices
CMU 418: The Information Society
CMU 507: Computers and Critical Thought
: while at Carleton University :
SOCI 5209: Graduate Seminar in Science and Technology Studies
SOCI 4501: Sociological Studies of Science and Technology
SOAN 3805: Introduction to Cultural Studies
SOCI 2400: Introduction to the Cultural Studies of Science and Technology
In addition, I have the following teaching experience from Stanford University, Stanford California
Spring 1994: "The Origins of Life: An Investigation of the Historical and Philosophical Issues Concerning Origins of Life Research" (Instructor and course creator)
: completed Graduate Student Supervisions (all at Carleton University) :
Heidi Rimke (Carleton Senate Award for Outstanding Dissertation)
Craig MacFarlane (Distinction)
Karine Peppin
Patrick Burke
Gerald Morton
Karim Hassan
Elizabeth Kim