Robert O'Dell III

I am a hard working and dedicated scholar who aspires to become a leading academic in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) focusing on the History of Technology and Techno-ethics. My goal is to become a Technological and Scientific Historian, Ethicist, and a pioneer in the use of retrospective analysis, applied fields in the humanities, and technological history as a medium to better understand and solve the problems and ethical quandaries that society faces from rapid scientific and technological growth in the twenty-first century. I am a proponent for educating the next generation of ethical innovators, through outreach, scholarship, and innovative collegiate courses fostering interdisciplinary cooperation and farsighted moral and ethical decision-making. During my graduate studies, I would like to pursue topics in the ethical development, creation, and use of technologies, the long-term unintended consequences that engineering and scientific decision-making can have on society, and more broadly, the impact that industrial growth and technological development has on humanity and the environment throughout the historical past and the present. I would also like to study the societal challenges and implications of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, the role of policy, governmental factors, regulation, and incentive (throughout history) on encouraging or hindering innovation, and the relationship between science and religion in a world shaped by rapid and unforeseen change.