Memo+3+Biosketch+2020

PhD Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Science and Technology Studies 2012 MA New York University, Humanities and Social Thought 2008 BS Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Science, Technology and Society 2005
 * Jessica Welch Lyons**

Jessica Lyons is currently an assistant professor of Science, Technology and Society Studies in the Science and Technology Studies Department at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the primary developer of the newly implemented graduate program in Science and Technology Studies and is the current Graduate Student Director. The majority of Dr. Lyons' early work dealt with biology, medicine and society, primarily on treatment of infectious diseases and alternative and complementary medicine. However, the most central theme of current her work has been the social value of collective deviance. Her PhD dissertation, funded by the Social Science Research Council, focused on the contributions of historical piracy to Western science and access and appropriation of science and technology. She continued to expand this project as a teaching fellow and research assistant in the Science and Technology Studies program at University College London. Her work resulted in numerous journal articles, including “Constructing Legitimacy: The Appropriation of Indigenous Science,” as well as the widely read //Pirate, Politics and Science// (Routledge, 2015). She also served as an executive consultant for Disney's Pirates of the Atlantic Theme Park in Southern Miami, Florida. Following this maritime theme, Dr. Lyons took up the study of radical environmentalism and the marine environmental justice movement. Her highly debated participant observation of “eco-piracy” and analysis of the debate over "scientific research whaling" between the International Whaling Commission and Japanese scientists was recently published in //Open Waters: The Clash between Culture and Science// (Rutgers University Press, 2020). After becoming acquainted with Dr. Paul Farmer at recent a conference on social justice movements, her interest in medicine and society was revived and her primary focus shifted to indigenous epistemic networks of medical knowledge and modification and use of Western medical technology in isolated and poverty stricken locations. She is presently researching the epidemiology and treatment of multi drug resistant infectious diseases in Africa, co-funded by the National Science Foundation and World Health Organization. Known as the Indiana Jones of Science Studies, she can often be found working in the field or speaking at various conferences and symposiums, both in the United States and abroad. In addition to her academic responsibilities, she currently sits as lead scientist on the board of directors for EarthEcho International and is a futurist/senior associate at the Institute for Alternative Futures.

Her current interests include: cultural studies of science and technology; deviance; issues of expertise, epistemic networks; appropriation of technology, anthropology of alternative and complementary treatment and the sociology of epidemiology.