Research
Ellan Spero is a historian of science and technology, educator and instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is an academic entrepreneur, serving as co-founder and professor of the practice at Station1, a nonprofit higher education institution focused on a new inclusive and cross-disciplinary model of socially-directed science and technology education, research, and innovation. Dr. Spero’s research focuses on the ways that people envision human progress through the systems, institutions, objectives, and narratives that they create. As a historian working at the intersection of technology, business, and higher education, Dr. Spero’s research explores narratives of progress, systems of production, academic-industrial ecosystems, and interactions between humans and material infrastructures.
Dr.
Spero is on the leadership team of a cross-disciplinary
multi-institutional research grant awarded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator (Track I, Phase I) on the topic
of “Socioresilient Materials Design (SMD): A New Paradigm for
Addressing Global Challenges in Sustainability." This research program
is an innovative cross-sector and cross-disciplinary effort that aims to
fundamentally rethink, re-shape, re-direct, and accelerate materials
research and development towards more environmentally, socially, and
economically sustainable and resilient materials-based products and
materials-driven outcomes. This research program will reframe the
classical materials design paradigm through the incorporation of social
metrics, develop state-of-the-art materials computational methods and
software, and utilize and incorporate nature-inspired principles to
meaningfully shift our current trajectory of planetary crises in
pollution, waste, biodiversity, and climate change.
Dr.
Spero has led the development of cross-disciplinary curriculum on
socially-directed science and technology and is a co-lead on three
grant-funded pedagogical initiatives which focus on social
responsibility, inclusive innovation, and thoughtful development of
science and technology. At MIT, she has co-developed and co-teaches
“Materials, Societal Impact, and Social Innovation (MSS 3.087)” and
“Social Life of Materials: Past-Present-Future (SLM 3.S04)” and serves
as the facilitator for the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Collaborative.
Dr.
Spero serves on the Board of Directors of the Lawrence History Center
(Massachusetts, United States), The Watch Library Foundation
(Switzerland), and Station1 (Massachusetts, United States). She serves
as the chair of the Prometheans working group on history of engineering
and on the Nominations Committee within SHOT, and co-chair of the
engineering studies working group in the Consortium for the History of
Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Dr. Spero participates in
international research communities across disciplines and has presented
at the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), the International
Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), the Business History
Conference (BHC), Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), the
European Economic History Association, the Social Science History
Association (SSHA), the World Congress of Economic History, the
Materials Research Society (MRS), and specialty conferences and
workshops on World’s Expos, academic-entrepreneurship, the Anthropocene,
and maintenance and innovation. She has received research fellowships
from the Linda Hall Library, the Chemical Heritage Foundation (Science
History Institute), and Hagley Museum and Library.
Spero
has held visiting appointments at the Ca’ Foscari University (Venice,
Italy), University of Padova (Italy), École polytechnique fédérale de
Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland), and was a postdoctoral fellow at the
Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD, Singapore). Dr.
Spero holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society (HASTS).
Spero also holds a B.S. and M.S. from Cornell University in Fiber
Science and Apparel Design, and a M.A from the Fashion Institute of
Technology (FIT) in Museum Studies and Textile Conservation.
Selected publications
Datta, B.C., E.F. Spero, F.J Martin-Martinez, and C. Ortiz, “Socially-directed Development of Materials for Structural Color,” Advanced Materials. Vol. 34, Issue 20, 2022: 2100939.
Spero, E. F., & Ortiz, C. Navigating Dimensions across Materials and History: Scale as a Lens to Understand Dynamic and Cumulative Sociotechnical Relationships. Diseña, No.18, Article 1, 2021: 3-25.
Spero, E.F., “A Garden City for Progress and Harmony: Singapore at the Osaka 1970 Expo,” in World’s Fairs in the Era of the Cold War, S.G. Knowles and A. Molella eds., University of Pittsburgh Press 2019.
Spero, E.F., “An Entrepreneurial Opportunity in Process: the Creation of an Industrial Fellowship Through Correspondence in Early 20th Century America” Management and Organizational History (Special Issue on Academic Entrepreneurship) Vol. 3, 2017: 199- 215.
Spero, E.F., and Pereira, H.J., “The Tua Valley, A Symbolic and Technological Landscape” CEM Cultura, Espaço e Memória/ Culture, Space & Memory No. 7, 2016: 223-241.
Pereira, H.J., Spero, E.F., “Introduction: rusty tracks and what to do with them” In McCants, Beira, Cordeiro, Laurenço, Pereira eds. New Uses for Old Railways 2016: 11-17.
Spero, E.F., The Tua River Valley: A “Technological Landscape” in Railroads in historical context: construction, costs and consequences. Vol. III, 2013: 3-9.
Obendorf, S. K. and Spero, E.F., “Destructive Adsorption for Enhanced Chemical Protection,” Performance of Protective Clothing and Equipment: Emerging Issues and Technologies on April 16, 2011 in Anaheim, CA; STP 1544, Angie M. Shepherd, Editor, pp. 1–14, doi:10.1520/ STP103884, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA 2012.