Ashley Shew's main area of interest is the history and philosophy of technology, but almost anything might be construed as technology, so she enjoys a wide range of topics, including applied ethics, domestic history, anthropology, and philosophy of science. Her masters thesis in STS, completed this past year, asked how we should regard spider webs and beaver dams with relation to technology. Her masters thesis in philosophy, to be completed this year, will delve into animal intentionality.

Shew is a third-year graduate student in Science & Technology Studies, Philosophy-track. She has a BA from the University of South Carolina in Philosophy, with a minor in Medical Humanities, where her Honors Thesis was entitled, "Professionalizing Nanotechnology: Toward the Development of a Code of Ethics for an Emerging Field." She maintains an active interest in the history and development of nanotechnology.

Selected Publications:

Forthcoming: "Nanotechnology's Future: Considerations for the Professional." In Fritz Allhoff and Patrick Lin (eds.), Nanoethics: Emerging Debates. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008.

With Davis Baird: "Probing the History of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy." In Discovering the Nanoscale, edited by Davis Baird, Alfred Nordmann, and Joachim Schummer. Amsterdam: IOS Press. 2004. (Also available online at:
lhttp://www.ifs.tu-darmstadt.de/fileadmin/phil/nano/toc.html )