Sonja Schmid

Background

About Sonja Schmid

I am an associate professor in Virginia Tech's Department of Science, Technology, and Society (that's in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences), and currently serve as the Co-Director of the Graduate Program in STS in the DC metro area. I am also an affiliate faculty member of the Nuclear Engineering program, and regularly collaborate with faculty in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). My research and teaching interests include social and historical studies of science and technology, science and technology policy (in particular energy policy), technology transfer and international cooperation, nuclear nonproliferation, public engagement with science and technology, and risk communication. In particular, my research has focused on nuclear history and policy in the Soviet Union and its former satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2015, MIT Press published my book,"Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry"​ (Inside Technology Series), which won the 2014 ASCINA award, a prize for an outstanding publication by an Austrian in the United States. I have also published numerous related articles and book chapters on the Soviet nuclear power program. My latest project, supported by an NSF-CAREER award, has been devoted to studying the challenges of globalizing nuclear disaster preparedness and response programs. The project encompasses an oral history component (interviews with nuclear emergency responders), and involves mapping existing capabilities. A comparative dimension examines different ways of accomplishing similar goals (my core cases are the US, Russia, and Germany, but I also consider French, European Union, and Japanese initiatives). Part of the project was a monthly speaker series, SIREN, which is now archived online and accessible here: https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/siren/home. As a final step, I have been developing interdisciplinary pedagogical tools aimed at improving the training of future nuclear experts - engineers, policy makers, communicators, and the general public. Most recently, together with the Nuclear Engineering Program, and the School of Public and International Affairs, we've launched an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in "Nuclear Science, Technology, and Policy" that provides nuclear experts of different ilk with a more comprehensive and nuanced approach to problems involving nuclear energy than existing disciplinary silos.