Welcome New STS Director Dr. Thomas Mullaney

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Thomas Mullaney as the new Director of the STS Program. 

Dr. Mullaney joins us from the Department of History and has long been closely affiliated with STS, having co-taught our gateway course STS 1 five times and advised STS Honors students. A renowned historian of technology and China, his research explores the intersections of technology, culture, and society, with particular attention to the history of computing and information systems.

Dr. Mullaney is Professor of History and Professor (by courtesy) of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford. He currently serves as the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress and is a Guggenheim Fellow.

He is the author or lead editor of seven books, including The Chinese Typewriter (winner of the Fairbank Prize), Your Computer is on Fire, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China, The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age, and the forthcoming How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information.

His writings have appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. His work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and other venues. Dr. Mullaney holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

We are excited for the vision, energy, and creativity Dr. Mullaney will bring to STS as he guides the program into its next chapter, strengthening our commitment to interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship.