Departments and Research Centers

Science, Technology, and Public Policy program

The Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program is a unique research, education, and policy engagement center concerned with cutting-edge questions that arise at the intersection of science, technology, policy, and society.

Content type
Showing 31 - 60 of 317 results
Publication

Automated License Plate Readers widely used, subject to abuse

Feb 22, 2023
Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are being used by a growing number of public and private entities to track drivers’ movements and location. The use of the technology is almost entirely unregulated and can be subject to abuse, so some...
Surveillance Cameras
In the Media

Parthasarathy weighs in on implications of ChatGPT

Feb 6, 2023 Nature
Shobita Parthasarathy, Nature: "Besides directly producing toxic content, there are concerns that AI chatbots will embed historical biases or ideas about the world from their training data, such as the superiority of particular cultures, says...
Shobita Parthasarathy
News

Announcing winter 2023 Ford School events

Jan 11, 2023
 The Ford School is pleased to announce an exciting lineup for the winter 2023 Policy Talks @ the Ford School series and other special public events hosted with partners from across campus. Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise...
Headshots of Peter Meijer, Jelani Cobb, Jeh Johnson, Andy Levin, and Angela Harrelson
News

Green discusses the fairness of algorithms at Harvard University

Jan 10, 2023
Postdoctoral scholar Ben Green recently joined Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society for a webinar focused on what fairness means in the context of algorithms and how fairness can be measured. Joined by other scholars...
Ben Green
News

Ford School STPP scholars receive inaugural Quad Fellowships

Jan 3, 2023
Two graduate certificate students in the Ford School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program have been selected for the inaugural cohort of the Quad Fellowship, a program designed to spur interdisciplinary scientific and...
STPP informal logo on a blue background
News

Ford School faculty launch open online courses

Dec 19, 2022
Three Ford School faculty have developed exciting new online courses to equip learners and professionals around the globe with interdisciplinary skills that help them engage in and inform complex public policy decision-making processes. Elisabeth...
Headshots of Liz Gerber, Paula Lantz, and Shobita Parthasarathy
State & Hill

Diversity, equity, and inclusion highlights

Dec 19, 2022
The University of Michigan is currently in an interim period between its strategic plans for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), with the next plan set to launch in early fall 2023. The Ford School community did not pause, however, and is hard...
Photo of DeAndré Calvert addressing a room of attendees at the Ford School reunion in 2019
News

Parthasarathy discusses implications of Large Language Models

Nov 7, 2022
Large Language Models (LLMs) are artificial intelligence tools that can read, summarize and translate texts and predict future words in a sentence letting them generate sentences similar to how humans talk and write. Shobita Parthasarathy, professor...
Shobita Parthasarathy
News

Ford School faculty contribute to Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative

Oct 31, 2022
Three Ford School faculty members have played an integral role in U-M's Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative, providing expertise and guidance to the initiative. The Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative is led by the Office of the Provost and aims to bring 21...
Weill Hall
Publication

Green discusses "substantive algorithmic fairness"

Oct 19, 2022
Ford School assistant professor Ben Green, and an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, says that if algorithms are to improve society, focusing only on whether they’re mathematically “fair” won’t get us...
Ben Green
Publication

Are sanitary pads a panacea for impoverished women?

Sep 21, 2022
In an era when the Indian government has prioritized women's menstrual health and movies like Netflix's "Period. End of Sentence" are garnering worldwide attention, the distribution of disposable sanitary pads to women in India's rural areas has...
Shobita Parthasarathy
In the Media

Parthasarathy comments on new ARPA-H director

Sep 13, 2022 Nature
President Joe Biden recently named Renee Wegrzyn as the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a new agency tasked with finding innovative solutions to biomedical problems. Nature asked Shobita...
Professor Shobita Parthasarathy leads a discussion in the Betty Ford Classroom
In the Media

Kleinman weighs in on Detroit ShotSpotter debate

Sep 8, 2022 Axios
As the Detroit City Council debates expanding ShotSpotter, a tool that identifies the sound of gunshots, Molly Kleinman, managing director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, weighed in. "There are things they could be doing...
Headshot of Molly Kleinman
State & Hill

A program like no other

May 31, 2022
Parthasarathy and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program chart a unique course for impact By Jennifer Conlin In 2005, when Shobita Parthasarathy saw a position advertised to create a new policy program in science and technology at...
Photo of the north wall of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts
State & Hill

Science and technology research in brief

May 31, 2022
Raimi, Rohde, and Hausman are among our dynamic STPP core faculty                                                                                                  Behaviors and climate change Kaitlin Raimi is a Ford School associate...
Headshots of Kaitlin Raimi, Joy Rohde, and Catherine Hausman
In the Media

Parthasarathy raises ethical questions in Henrietta Lacks lawsuit

May 18, 2022 GBH News
Shobita Parthasarathy, professor of public policy and director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, discussed the ethical concerns surrounding the lawsuit filed against Thermo Fisher Scientific by the family of Henrietta Lacks...
Professor Shobita Parthasarathy leads a discussion in the Betty Ford Classroom