The Diversity Challenge: Race, gender, and how the histories of medicine and technology got made

In this week’s “22 Lessons on Ethics and Technology” special series, I sit down with Dr. Evelynn Hammonds to talk about how race and gender have shaped the histories of science, medicine, and technological development. We explore the divisions between investigations of gender within scientific and technological inquiry, and race within these same fields. How can an intersectional approach challenge our science and technologies to better serve, and include, a broader diversity of people? How have our concepts of science and technology, and our assumptions about what they can and should do, been shaped by exclusions? How can those trained and working in the Humanities can learn from those trained in and working in the Sciences and Technology fields, and vice-versa? How does an understanding of the history of ideas, and the people and forces that have shaped them, inform our ability to build, innovate, and create work cultures that are more ethical and equitable?