Gary Downey

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Gary Downey is an ethnographic listener interested in engineering studies, especially practices of knowledge in service. Trained as a mechanical engineer (B.S. Lehigh 1974) and cultural anthropologist (B.A. Lehigh 1974, M.A. 1977 Chicago, Ph.D. Chicago 1981), he is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Science and Technology Studies and affiliated faculty member in Engineering Education, Sociology, and Women's Studies. He is author of The Machine in Me: An Anthropologist Sits Among Computer Engineers (Routledge 1998), co-editor of  Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies (School of American Research Press 1998), and co-author of the multimedia textbook Engineering Cultures (Virginia Tech 2002). He is co-founder of the International Network for Engineering Studies and co-editor of its interdisciplinary journal Engineering Studies. He was Distinguished Lecturer at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education and Keynote Lecturer at the 7th World Congress of Chemical Engineering in 2005.  He is winner of the 2004 William E. Wine Award for career excellence in teaching, 2003 XCaliber Award for high-quality instructional technology, and 1997 Diggs Teaching Scholar Award for original scholarship in teaching.  His current research explores the influences of dominant images of progress on what counts as engineers and engineering knowledge in different countries.