Professor of Public Policy; Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy program
Parthasarathy studies the governance of emerging science and technology and the politics of evidence and expertise in policy in comparative and international perspective. Her current research focuses on equity in innovation and innovation policy. She co-hosts The Received Wisdom podcast.
From A.I. to zero emissions
Ford School faculty host and are featured in a variety of podcasts, covering policy topics from artificial intelligence, everyday economics, national security, and more.
My job has always been to demonstrate to...
The Trump administration is pushing changes to rules that govern how federal agencies distribute funding, which could permanently politicize research in the US.
STPP's new project will explore the potential benefits and harms of AI in supporting people with developmental disabilities, their families, and direct-care workers.
In an essay published in Issues in Science and Technology, Shobita Parthasarathy on the current lack of equity in science and innovation and argues that, to change this, "society needs to think differently about expertise, innovation itself, and syst...
In her second column for Science Magazine, Ford School Professor Shobita Parthasarathy argues that rather than treating the growing crisis of public trust as an information and communication problem, we should treat it as an innovation and expertise ...
University of Michigan researchers call for policies to ensure that small modular reactors serve the public interest without creating and worsening familiar problems.
Ford School Professor Shobita Parthasarathy has been invited to serve as an “Expert Voices” columnist for Science over the next two years. Read her inaugural column, “Beware the drive to scale technology.”
Ford School professor Shobita Parthasarathy has been appointed to the Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee that was established in 2016 to advance ethical...
Artificial intelligence is often debated in terms of being a cure-all or chaos agent, as if independent of its human creators. Neither is the case, nor should we forget who makes it and why, and how it should serve humanity. Shobita Parthasarathy dis...
Kirti Jayakumar, from the India-based Gender Security Project, interviewed Shobita Parthasarathy about her journey into science policy, her research in India, using a social justice perspective to advance technology, and the role of law and policy. B...
Have you ever disassembled a broken coffee maker or a sink, convinced you could fix it, only to end up with a jumble of parts? As a child, Terry Nguyen’s (BA ’25) curiosity about how things worked led to a broken fan, a pile of parts, and no idea how...
In an era of rapid technological advancement, ensuring that innovation benefits everyone is urgent. Shobita Parthasarathy, professor and director of the Ford School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, studies how technological innovatio...
Advances in fields like artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and data science are rapidly shaping society and raising significant ethical and policy questions. The dizzying pace of development also highlights the need for academic programs that pr...
Shobita Parthasarathy, Ford School professor, says "These workers have real expertise and a nuanced understanding of the issues, which AI does not. AI does not, in fact, ‘understand’ anything." So, she says, “It’s a very bad idea" to use AI to run t...
Shobita Parthasarathy spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in a session titled, “Revisiting Asilomar Fifty Years Later: Who is in the room when we talk about AI?” While Asilomar is often praised for d...
Last weekend, a scientific ethics conference was held in Asilomar, California, to recreate the meeting that occurred there 50 years prior. Half a century ago, scientists met to establish guidelines for the future and practice of genetic science. The ...
Fifty years ago, the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA convened 140 life scientists from the U.S. and the UK to anticipate potential risks in the emerging biotechnology field to help inform rules and regulations. The conference was celebrated as...
A week after the University of Michigan celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) honored his work at its own event—a panel discussion focused on keeping environmental justice at the for...
"Shobita Parthasarathy teaches graduate students about science policy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. New technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are 'really energizing people' to consider the directions of science and technolog...
How much control should we have over our likeness? Our anonymity? Nearly 200 attendees confronted these questions at a Ford School event with New York Times technology reporter Kashmir Hill, in conversation with Science, Technology, and Public Policy...
Many of the research projects housed at the Science, Technology and Public Policy program (STPP) in the Ford School focus on climate issues for a simple reason, explains Managing Director Molly Kleinman. "None of this technology operates without elec...
A research project from the Ford School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program was selected by the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society (MIDAS) as part of its 2024 Propelling Original Data Science grants to accelerate respon...
Shobita Parthasarathy, Ford School professor director of Science, Technology and Public Policy Program, discussed the Michigan bill lawmakers are working on to address the rise of non-consensual deepfake pornography. She said, “I worry about placing ...
As generative artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, University of Michigan expert Shobita Parthasarathy says technical revisions to the mechanics may address some harms built into the technology so far. Yet, she argues, “it will always be behin...
Inclusive innovation—the idea of introducing technologies designed for and by the poor to boost economic growth in impoverished communities—often misses the real problems facing these communities and champions solutions that benefit entrepreneurs at ...
