Shobita Parthasarathy
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Shobita Parthasarathy
@shobitap.org
4.8K followers 150 following 1.1K posts
Science & tech politics/policy incl patents. Author: next book on politics of inclusive innovation/tech for equity. #STS scholar. Prof & Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, U of Michigan. Expert Voices columnist, Science. shobitap.org
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · Sep 18
I am a new Expert Voices columnist @science.org and my first article just came out! In it, I argue that scaling technology has a dark side, particularly when it comes to alleviating inequality and injustice. And I suggest what scientists, engineers, and policymakers can do about it.
Beware the drive to scale technology
When it comes to technology, scalability—its capacity to be standardized and then distributed en masse and across contexts—is the ultimate goal. Scientists and engineers view scalability as the route ...
www.science.org
shobitap.org
Keep it up people!!
January 20, 2026 at 2:51 PM
shobitap.org
Just learned that McConaughey is an investor in an AI company. So this move is not about protecting himself; it's about commodifying himself.
January 17, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
jonathanconp.bsky.social
If you think AI customer service is bad, just think about all the people using it as their therapist.
January 17, 2026 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
nytimes.com
The incoming Democratic governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, has asked at least five members of the board overseeing the University of Virginia who were appointed by her Republican predecessor to resign, according to people briefed on the matter.
Some U.Va. Board Members Asked to Resign as Gov. Abigail Spanberger Takes Power
After months of upheaval at the state’s flagship university, a new Democratic governor appeared ready to shake up the school’s leadership.
nyti.ms
January 16, 2026 at 10:35 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
jaimemanzano.bsky.social
I’ve turned the @mbarber.bsky.social starter pack into a dedicated list you can now add to your feeds, making it much easier to stay updated on #a2m content. #idsky #medsky #tbsky #EpiSky
bsky.app/profile/did:...
mbarber.bsky.social Melissa Barber @mbarber.bsky.social · Nov 12
As folks transition over from the other place, I've put together a list of folks tweeting on access to medicines #a2m and pharmaceutical policy.

It’s a work in progress, esp as ppl continue to trickle in—please feel free to message me if you know someone who shd be added.

go.bsky.app/RUEiXCa
January 15, 2026 at 5:13 AM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
mbarber.bsky.social
As folks transition over from the other place, I've put together a list of folks tweeting on access to medicines #a2m and pharmaceutical policy.

It’s a work in progress, esp as ppl continue to trickle in—please feel free to message me if you know someone who shd be added.

go.bsky.app/RUEiXCa
November 12, 2024 at 5:35 PM
shobitap.org
This could be applied to multiple situations, across multiple countries--but only involving one government--right now. Sigh.
matthewjkuiper.bsky.social Matthew J (is) Tired @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 6d
Can’t imagine why this line from the film Gandhi is coming to mind:

“100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate."
January 15, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
matthewjkuiper.bsky.social
Can’t imagine why this line from the film Gandhi is coming to mind:

“100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate."
January 15, 2026 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
iwashyna.bsky.social
“the proportion of SpO2 measurements >94% despite a paired SaO2 ≤92% ranged from 5.3 to 35.3 percentage points higher for patients with darker skin tones than for those with lighter skin tones (7.6-62.2% v 1.2-26.9%, rate ratio 2.3-7.1).”
January 15, 2026 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
keanbirch.bsky.social
I'm co-chairing the Society for Social Studies of Science @4sweb.bsky.social Conference in Toronto, Oct 2026. #STS #scipol #innovation

Theme: "TechnoPower • Technoscientific Futures".

Open panel submissions portal is open! ls!

Deadline: 2nd February 2026

www.4sonline.org/about_the_co...
About the Conference
www.4sonline.org
January 14, 2026 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
donmoyn.bsky.social
The FBI searched the home of a Washington Post reporter seeking classified state documents. Nothing she wrote about could be considered classified. They simply want to suppress dissent via intimidation. Don't let them. Here is what she wrote. Please share.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
I am The Post’s ‘federal government whisperer.’ It’s been brutal.
One reporter’s effort to show how Trump was transforming government brought her 1,168 new sources — and nearly broke her.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 14, 2026 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
jamellebouie.net
this, driving a person to suicide because they had the temerity to want to work in public service, is what russ vought hoped to accomplish
mikemadden.bsky.social Mike Madden @mikemadden.bsky.social · 28d
“One day, a woman wrote to me on Signal, asking me not to respond. She lived alone, she messaged, and planned to die that weekend. Before she did, she wanted at least one person to understand: Trump had unraveled the government, and with it, her life.” @hannahnatanson.bsky.social essay:
I am The Post’s ‘federal government whisperer.’ It’s been brutal.
One reporter’s effort to show how Trump was transforming government brought her 1,168 new sources — and nearly broke her.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 14, 2026 at 2:13 PM
shobitap.org
Less than a year ago, McConaughey was the pitch man for Salesforce's agentic AI (he even starred in a Superbowl ad!) Guess this is his solution?
January 14, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
shobitap.org
The scientific board @anses-fr.bsky.social just released a statement responding to attacks on scientific expertise that does a fantastic job (if I do say so myself!) of simultaneously affirming technical expertise and engaging the social and political dimensions of science and risk assessment.
Position statement by the Scientific Board on the importance of independent scientific expertise | Anses - Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail
Committed to ensuring that scientific expertise is properly taken into consideration in the public decision-making process, the ANSES Scientific Board has produced and published a position statement e...
www.anses.fr
January 13, 2026 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
shobitap.org
While the US undoes its legacy, ANSES and other agencies around the world are making risk assessment better serve society: incorporating public/stakeholder knowledge and rethinking cost-benefit analysis to center social needs. This passage of the statement gives a sense of ANSES' novel approach:
ANSES demonstrates how such expertise can operate in practice. As France’s national agency for health and safety in food, environment, and work environment, it assesses risks ranging from pesticide exposure and air pollution to food contaminants and occupational hazards. Acting independently, it informs policymaking, anticipates emerging threats, and ensures that assessments are transparent and interdisciplinary. ANSES is a world leader in integrating socioeconomic and social science perspectives into risk assessment, while maintaining close engagement with stakeholders, civil society, and institutions. It has advanced systemic approaches such as One Health, which recognizes interdependence between human, animal, plant and environmental health, and the exposome, which accounts for the lifetime history of exposures that affect health. All these initiatives make scientific expertise socially robust: they encompass not only the technical dimensions of risk but also their determinants, their implications for society, and the governance challenges they raise. As such, they offer resources to identify and address the deeper reasons for mistrust in scientific expertise.
January 13, 2026 at 2:34 PM
shobitap.org
Another data point against AI: apparently I have a Grokepedia entry, and it is riddled with errors (and contradicts itself) even though it was "fact-checked by Grok 3 weeks ago". 😱 (While my Wikipedia entry is a little out of date, none of it is flat wrong.)
Inaccurate Grokepdia entry that claims, for example, that my first cook compared US and Indian approaches to genetic testing for breast cancer (it does not). Grokepedia text: Shobita Parthasarathy is an American professor of public policy and women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where she serves as director and co-founder of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program.[1][2] Her research centers on the comparative politics of science and technology governance, including the social implications of biotechnology, intellectual property regimes, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and gene editing, and challenges related to equity, inequality, and public trust in scientific innovation.[1][3] Parthasarathy is the author of two books—Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press, 2012), which compares U.S. and Indian approaches to genetic testing for breast cancer, and Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017), which critiques the political influences shaping patent systems for biotechnological inventions.[2][4] She has contributed to policy discussions, including congressional testimony on science policy, and co-hosts the podcast The Received Wisdom, which examines governance strategies for science and technology to address global challenges like inequality and expert distrust.[5][6] Currently, her ongoing projects include books on failures in technological innovation and strategies to enhance public trust in science, alongside recent publications in journals such as Science critiquing the uncritical scaling of technologies.[1][3] This text inaccurately says I co-founded and directed STPP in 2015, and was a lecturer at UChicago (I was not). Text: In September 2015, Parthasarathy co-founded and became Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) Program at the University of Michigan, a role she continues to hold.[7][2] Under her direction, the program has developed initiatives such as the Technology Assessment Project, which produced reports on topics including large language models.[2] Prior to her Michigan appointment, Parthasarathy served as Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago from September 2006 to August 2007.[7] She has held fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, focusing on innovation equity.[8]
January 13, 2026 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
aniloza.bsky.social
A long awaited study on pulse oximeter bias didn't yield the answers researchers hoped

“We got a very clear signal that we do not adequately understand pulse oximeter performances in sick patients" - @iwashyna.bsky.social

www.statnews.com/2026/01/12/p...
FDA-funded study of pulse oximeter accuracy yields surprising and confusing results
A long-awaited study commissioned by the FDA has muddied the path forward on how to reduce racial bias in pulse oximeter readings
www.statnews.com
January 13, 2026 at 2:05 PM
shobitap.org
Over the last year, the United States has receded as a global leader in many areas, notably science and risk assessment. To wit, yesterday the EPA announced it would no longer consider lives saved in its cost-benefit analysis of air pollution. 🧵 Gift link 👇🏽
E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution
www.nytimes.com
January 13, 2026 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
New on H-Sci-Med-Tech:

Check out Joy Rohde (@umich.edu)’s review of Peter C. Grace (@universityofotago.bsky.social)’s book _The Intelligence Intellectuals: Social Scientists and the Making of the CIA_ pub 2026 @ Georgetown University Press

#hstm

Review available @hnetreviews.bsky.social
January 12, 2026 at 3:56 PM
shobitap.org
What also strikes me, based on the excellent analysis in this article, is that Beardsley is not a serious scholar. Which is a problem when you want to lead a serious academic institution (but American academia seems increasingly interested in these business types, sadly).
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9d
This seems to strongly suggest that the incoming president of UVA doctored his CV to the edge of outright dishonesty, and that the most recent changes came months before Jim Ryan was forced, as if they were made in anticipation in Ryan’s removal. augustafreepress.com/news/vanishi...
How UVA’s presidential search missed what took us an hour to find
Inside Higher Ed frames the controversy surrounding Scott C. Beardsley's appointment as the University of Virginia's president.
augustafreepress.com
January 11, 2026 at 8:18 PM
shobitap.org
Is it just me, or have you seen a sharp increase in white manels over the last year or so? 🤔
January 11, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
nisreenalwan.bsky.social
According to this FT article, Sir Paul Nurse says: “I’m afraid there’s many bad people around, but they have made scientific advances.”

The ‘but’ in this quote says it all…

So don’t blame us when we lose faith in institutions that regard integrity as irrelevant to designating scientific greatness.
January 11, 2026 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
atrupar.com
We evacuated our kids out of Minneapolis this weekend and my spouse reports that as she drove them out of town she saw "multiple freeway exits where people are being pulled over." It feels like the Twin Cities is being subjugated by a hostile occupying force.
January 10, 2026 at 1:47 AM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
chadloder.bsky.social
Apropos of absolutely nothing to do with the masked men with no visible agency insignia carrying crates of who knows what out of the shooter's house, but HBO just released an amazing documentary into DHS "shadow units" whose job was to destroy evidence of Border Patrol's crimes
HBO documentary sheds light on Border Patrol’s now-defunct ‘shadow units’
“Anastasio was tragically tortured, beaten, kicked, stomped, and killed by border agents,” said Guerrero. “Unfortunately, that was only the first part of the story, the second par…
www.borderreport.com
January 9, 2026 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Shobita Parthasarathy
notaaroncraig.bsky.social
YES, this. How many years did these same orgs refuse to call a lie a lie, and then all we have are lies and they're like ... why does no one trust us?

It's not some failure of middle-school civics teachers. People hate being lied to maybe hate it more when you know it's a lie but refuse to say so.
froomkin.bsky.social Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 11d
I think nothing makes people lose trust in news organizations as much as when they’ve seen something with their own eyes — and then see news coverage that doesn’t comport with what they themselves experienced. presswatchers.org/2026/01/why-...
Why would anyone trust a news organization that treats obvious truths as debatable? | Press Watch
The ICE agent who killed Renee Nicole Good was the aggressor, not the victim. That’s not a hard one.
presswatchers.org
January 9, 2026 at 9:57 PM