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Troy, NY
- costeb2@rpi.edu
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518-276-6390
About
I am an anthropologically-oriented STS scholar working at the intersection of community engagement, design research and pedagogy, and environmental justice.
My scholarly work on the contexts that enable effective collaboration, communication, and engagement is rooted in interdisciplinary research that centers both STS and non-academic perspectives.
For the past decade, building on my early ethnographic research on how environmental scientists at the EPA are approaching communication as a task of “context production,” I have designed and developed contexts for collaborative data analysis (the Platform for Collaborative Experimental Ethnography), public data sharing (the Jefferson Project Data Dashboard), and community-engaged pedagogy (Volunteer Troy and Vasudha Living & Learning).
My most recent research, while rooted in local community-engaged methods, aims to impact national policy and practices around nuclear waste, leading to more just and equitable processes and outcomes.
Permaculture Design Certificate, Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Rhinebeck, New York, June 2016
Ph.D., Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, August 2012
B.S., Science, Technology, and Society, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, May 2006
Research
My research and writing are situated within a wide variety of contexts, from innovations in “science communication as context production” in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to my current work enabling community-led redesign of nuclear waste policy. What’s common in all of these projects is a fascination with how STS can build on its long-standing success in helping people see the “bigger picture” (i.e. understanding context) by working with diverse stakeholders to build concepts, methods, and strategies that animate collective capacity to transform the contexts of their work.
Teaching
My teaching focuses on the intersection of social, ecological, and media literacy, bringing community engagement together with design thinking and creative research methods. For over a decade, I have had the pleasure of working with diverse students pursuing a wide range of majors and career paths, from social science and humanities, to engineering and computer science. My classes provide tools to understand how a matrix of factors (political, economic, cultural, historical, informational, legal, etc.) weave together to make social and ecological problems challenging and intriguing. Students gain a sense of diversity as a celebrated asset and experience systems thinking as a way of illuminating points of collaboration and intervention.
Community Engagement in a Changing Climate
Sustainability and STS Careers
Design, Innovation, & Society Studio A: Regenerative and Context-Centered Design
I regularly mentor students in connection with my research, offer independent studies, mentor STS graduate students, serve on PhD committees and graduate exam committees, serve as thesis advisor for Sustainability Studies majors, contribute pedagogically focused initiatives to performance planning, advise multiple student clubs, and serve as faculty advisor on student-led proposals and grants.
Recognition
2023 Rensselaer Trustees Outstanding Teacher Award, $17,050, institute-wide “teacher of the year” award
2023 Rensselaer School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Award for Exceptional Service
2021 David M. Darrin ’40 Counseling Award, $12,350, to recognize a faculty member who has made an unusual/exceptional contribution to the counseling of undergraduate students
2019 Rensselaer School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Award for Exceptional Teaching, $500
“Contingent Hope for Better Relations: Grassroots Infrastructure for Sustainable Community Engagement,” with Jen Cardinal, Northeast Modern Language Association, Boston, MA (2024)
“Community-Centered Design of Structures of Engagement: STS Perspectives on Consent-Based Siting,” Quarterly Meeting of the Consent-Based Siting Consortia, U.S. Department of Energy, Cleveland, OH (2023)
“Autoethnography, Collaborative Research, and Community Engaged Pedagogy in Troy, NY,” with Jen Cardinal, Guy Schaffer, and Abby Kinchy, the Sustainable Solutions Lab Transdisciplinary Climate Justice Research Workshop, Boston, MA (2023)
“Grassroots Infrastructure for Community Engaged Work,” with Jen Cardinal and Guy Schaffer, Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Online (2022)
“Precarious Methods: Contingency, Research, and Burnout,” with Jen Cardinal, Guy Schaffer, Chris Tozzi, and Jarah Moesch DIY Methods, conference hosted by the Low-Carbon Research Group (2022)
“Context-Centered Design: From Ethnography of Design to the Design of Ethnography and Pedagogy,” Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Toronto and online (2021)
“Situated Experiences: Ethical Questions, Experiential Learning,” with Guy Schaffer and Jen Cardinal, Engage for Change Conference, hosted by the Community Campus Collaborative, Loudonville, NY (2021)
“The Eco Ed Research Program: Adapting Lessons for Ecuadorian Climate Change Education Policy,” Kaleidos Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography at the University of Cuenca, Ecuador (2019)
“Experimental Education Infrastructures: Centering Climate Justice,” and panel organizer with Guy Schaffer, Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science, New Orleans, LA (September 2019)
Publications
The following is a selection of recent publications in Scopus. Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn has 9 indexed publications in the subjects of Social Sciences, Computer Science, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology.