Ashley Shew

Virginia Tech, Science and Technology in Society, Faculty Member

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I serve as an Associate Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, where I focus on issues in philosophy of technology, particularly at its intersection with animal studies, emerging technologies, and disability studies.
Supervisors: Joeseph C. Pitt

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Chris Bear

Cardiff University

Andy Miah

University of Salford

B. Harun Küçük

University of Pennsylvania

Soraj Hongladarom

MahaChulalongkornRajavidyalaya University

Simon Werrett

University College London

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Vincent Blok

Wageningen University

Christopher Witmore

Texas Tech University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Sergey Sokolovskiy

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Russian Academy of Science

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Papers by Ashley Shew

Experiencing disability: A preliminary analysis of professional identity development in U.S. undergraduate civil engineering students

29th Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference 2018 (AAEE 2018), Dec 1, 2018

Feedback Loops: Pragmatism About Science and Technology

Animals in Philosophy of Technology

Companion Animals as Technologies in Biomedical Research

Perspectives on Science, 2018

In this paper we examine the use of companion animals (pets) in studies of drugs and devices aime... more In this paper we examine the use of companion animals (pets) in studies of drugs and devices aimed at human and animal health and situate it within the context of philosophy of technology. We argue that companion animals serve a unique role in illuminating just what it means to use biological technologies and examine the implications for human-animal relationships. Though philosophers have often treated animals as technologies, we argue that the biomedical use of companion animals presents a new configuration of ethical and technological concerns that deserves more attention. Though it seems that companion animals solve many of the ethical dilemmas caused by the use of laboratory animals, the use of companion animals presents its own set of ethical concerns. This paper contextualizes the use of companion animals in research.

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Exploring professional identity development in undergraduate civil engineering students who experience disabilities

2018 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference, Apr 1, 2018

While recent calls throughout the engineering education community have focused on increasing dive... more While recent calls throughout the engineering education community have focused on increasing diversity and broadening participation in STEM, these conversations typically center on race and gender with little to no work addressing disability. But research in higher education broadly suggests that cognitive, physical, and learning disabilities can markedly impact the ways in which students perceive and experience school, develop professional identities, and move into the engineering workforce. To address this gap, we build on emerging conversations that explore the ways in which students experience disability within the context of engineering education. In particular, we conducted an initial grounded theory analysis of interviews examining professional identity formation in undergraduate civil engineering students who experience disabilities. From our analysis, we observed three themes that begin to highlight ways in which the experience of students with disabilities may contribute to their development as emerging civil engineers.

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The Minded Body in Technology and Disability

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology, 2021

This chapter critically examines futuristic and transhumanist rhetoric about cyborg bodies, exosk... more This chapter critically examines futuristic and transhumanist rhetoric about cyborg bodies, exoskeletons, and prostheses in the context of traditional philosophical accounts of the nature of mind and body. Finding that these whiz-bang accounts of future tech and the nature of body and mind mutually reinforce each other, this chapter then argues that a critical lens from disability studies provides better ways to talk about the experience of mind and body, and that the affirmation of cyborg expertise is crucial to reconsidering and re-forming both a philosophy of bodyminds and of our technological futures. Cast as first-adopters while also being imagined away (with the idea that technologies will make us nondisabled), technologized disabled people (or cyborgs) have ideas about bodies and technology that don’t match the technological dreams of elite designers and technology leaders. Relying on the testimony and experiences of disabled people helps us reimagine our technological futures.

Experiencing Disability in Undergraduate Civil Engineering Education: An Initial Examination of the Intersection of Disability and Professional Identities

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Engines of Second Creation

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 2013

We are in a position today to appreciate the ambiguity of technologies: that they are good, and b... more We are in a position today to appreciate the ambiguity of technologies: that they are good, and bad, and neutral and present challenges in different ways. Reading U.S. national nanotechnology documents and histories of nanotechnology, one finds that rhetoric idealizing progress without serious consideration of negative side-effects remains unfortunately fixed within stories constructed about technology. Though we should be better aware of the potential for unintended consequences and negative social effects (and, if anything, we should expect these things), the narratives about nanotechnology today still center on unlimited power over nature, much like technological narratives of eras past. David Nye, in America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings, explains how American narratives during the 19th century focused on technology as both transformative and stabilizing. In this time, it seemed as if nature was ready and waiting to be transformed and made usefu...

Board 52: Exploring Professional Identity Development in Undergraduate Civil Engineering Students Who Experience Disabilities

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

The Field of Field Philosophy: Socrates Tenured by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

This review assesses whether Briggle and Frodeman offer an accurate depiction of the state philos... more

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From a figment of your imagination: Disabled marginal cases and underthought experiments

Human Affairs

Philosophers often enroll disabled bodies and minds as objects of thought in their arguments from... more Philosophers often enroll disabled bodies and minds as objects of thought in their arguments from marginal cases and in thought experiments: for example, arguments for animal ethics use cognitively disabled people as a contrast case, and Merleau-Ponty uses a blind man with a cane as an exemplar of the relationship of technology to the human, of how technology mediates. However, these philosophers enroll disabled people without engaging significantly in any way with disabled people themselves. Instead, disabled people are treated in philosophy as literal objects—and in many cases, as less than human. (This sense of a categorical difference between disabled and nondisabled people is becoming especially clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, as I write this article.) Philosophical reflection thus makes assumptions—often wrong—about disabled people’s lives, experiences, and relationships to technology. Outside of philosophy as well as in, disabled people are not regarded as experts about o...

Board 102: Exploring Professional Identity Formation in Undergraduate Civil Engineering Students Who Experience Disabilities: Establishing Definitions of Self

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Leaving Civil Engineering: Examining the Intersections of Gender, Disability, and Professional Identity

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

New Editors' Introduction

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

Let COVID-19 expand awareness of disability tech

Nature

Ableism, Technoableism, and Future AI

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

Review of Fables and Futures: Biotechnology, Disability, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves by George Estreich

Disability Studies Quarterly

No abstract available.

Exploring student disability and professional identity: navigating sociocultural expectations in U.S. undergraduate civil engineering programs

Australasian Journal of Engineering Education

Nanotech's HistoryAn Interesting, Interdisciplinary, Ideological Split

Bulletin of Science Technology Society, 2008

Transmobility: Possibilities in Cyborg (Cripborg) Bodies

Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, Apr 1, 2019

This creative, experimental contribution blends written words and sketches depicting our crip bod... more This creative, experimental contribution blends written words and sketches depicting our crip bodies engaging with various mobility technologies, including crutches, walkers, prosthetic limbs, and manual and power wheelchairs. By picturing and describing our crip bodies with varieties of technologies that we use, we use these pictures and corresponding narratives about disabled bodies in technology to tell a larger story about the constitution of disability with technologies, as well as the modes of mobility available to disabled bodies. Our visual and narrative elements serve to argue that disabled bodies have a wider array of mobilities and ways of being than are afforded to non-disabled bodies. We resist super-crippery and insist on cripborgery. Crip bodies are taken as sites of possibility, adaptation, and creative reflection.

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Experiencing disability: A preliminary analysis of professional identity development in U.S. undergraduate civil engineering students

29th Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference 2018 (AAEE 2018), Dec 1, 2018

Feedback Loops: Pragmatism About Science and Technology

Animals in Philosophy of Technology

Companion Animals as Technologies in Biomedical Research

Perspectives on Science, 2018

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Exploring professional identity development in undergraduate civil engineering students who experience disabilities

2018 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference, Apr 1, 2018

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The Minded Body in Technology and Disability