Scholars Award: Visualization at the Nanoscale: The Uses of Images in the Production and Promotion of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

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This project funded by the Science, Technology, and Society Program; Nanoscale Exploratory Research; and the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation is a study of the visualization of nanoscale phenomena. Visualization is a term used in science and technology studies (STS) to describe the material and social process of making research objects visible, analyzable, and communicable. The study of visualization includes the analysis of publicly presented images and textual illustrations, but it also includes laboratory practices and instruments that create images from data. Consequently, a requirement for studying visualization is to retrace the pathways through which data are transformed into images, and candidate images are chosen for specific purposes.Images of nanoscale phenomena ("nano-images") are of particular interest for two principal reasons. (1) Nano-images are said to be created through manipulation, and they have no clear relation to independently observable entities. Nevertheless, they are composed as visible configurations of shape and color that evoke familiar landscapes and discernable patterns, while laying claim to a future of what can be seen and/or built at the nanoscale. (2) Nano-images and image galleries appear to have a leading role in the promotion of nanoscience and technology as part of a broad-based movement in science and industry. This raises the question of what, if any, relation the popularized images have to visualization of nanoscale phenomena at the research front. Selected science and engineering laboratories are studied primarily at Cornell University for the purpose of learning about how images are produced for different purposes and audiences. Open-ended interviews with laboratory researchers and relevant technical staff focus on specific images and sequences of image-processing work. Examples of images of different kinds are collected and examined for the way they deploy visual rhetoric for specific analytical and presentational purposes. The research contributes to STS scholarship on visualization in science, and to a rapidly growing interest in the use and display of images in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The project emphasizes the practical and epistemic importance of visual phenomena and material culture. It sheds light on the various types of nano-image, and examines whether and how they represent novel relations to objects of study and to different audiences.The project supplements ongoing research and training at Cornell University on ethical, legal, and social aspects of emerging technologies. The research also contributes to a book (tentatively titled Images in Science) designed for undergraduate and graduate level teaching in history, STS, visual studies, and other fields.