text: Science and technology surround us; they are part of politics, culture, and our private and public lives. And at the same time, politics, culture, our private and civic selves are inseparably parts of science and technology. The Professorship in Science and Technology Studies investigates these interrelationship with teaching and research that focuses on interdisciplinarity, connection-making, collaboration between natural and social scientists, and broad societal relevance for both contemporary and historical questions.
  STS is a relatively young field of academic inquiry, one that reflects, follows and comments upon science, technology, and academia, and how they shape (and are shaped by) society. Our vision of STS is broad; it includes sociological, anthropological and historical approaches to studying scientific knowledge and technologies, but also knowledge and techniques more generally. Indeed, iIf it did not sound a bit ridiculous, “Knowledge Studies” would perhaps capture the comprehensive approach we embrace.
  Wissenschaftliche Initiative zu Erweiterten DNA-Analysen – WIE-DNA Scientific Initiative on Advanced DNA Analysis
  Together with colleagues from a range of disciplines, including forensic medicine, genetics, statistics, and the social sciences, we are pursuing interdisciplinary research on the use of BGA (biogeographical ancestry) prediction and DNA phenotyping in criminal investigations. Some of our results have been published in journals of various disciplines. We have also communicated our findings to the public. For more information, please check the initiative’s website: www.wie-dna.de.
  We founded this initiative after a brutal murder case in October 2016 in Freiburg, when many called for legalizing controversial techniques for analyzing DNA. You can download our responses to these calls here: